OK, just tried out MS VSCode arduino extension and it worked just fine!
using nodemcu-32S
so, you get intellisense context sensitive help, autocompletion, tabs, readable output.
Haven’t tried the serial monitor or plotter yet (not sure if it has a plotter).
The important thing is to read the extension’s instructions and configure the path to Arduino.
Didn’t need to do anything special for the esp32, I just set the path to the main arduino directory, I’m guessing that it has picked up the path to Rui’s esp32 directory from some config in the Arduino main directory.
 

Serial monitor works great, after compiling and uploading it switches over to the serial monitor, as you’d expect!
No evidence of a Serial Plotter though.
Also, it seems to autodetect the Serial baud rate (unless 115200) is a default, as I didn’t set that anywhere.
So, apart from the lack of a serial plotter, VSCode seems superior to the Arduino IDE.

Hi David,
I’ve used the PlatformIO with Atom.io for the Arduino IDE: https://github.com/espressif/arduino-esp32/blob/master/docs/platformio.md
It also offers those features that you’ve mentioned. I usually prefer to stick with the Arduino IDE, because most people are already familiar with it and it’s one less thing that they have to worry about to make the projects.
But I really like Atom + PlatformIO

Understood, but for professional software developers the Arduino IDE is really painful.
No tabs, no autocompletion, no context sensitive help, unreadable output (orange on black, seriously??), serial monitor in a separate window, etc.
only thing missing is a serial plotter, if I get a few spare cycles I’ll implement a vscode extension with that functionality.
Dave

I totally agree Dave and I think you should give Atom.io + Platform IO a try. In fact, I frequently use it to make the projects. I might make a tutorial exclusively about PlatformIO of weeks after I complete the projects that I have on my list.
Regards,
Rui

ok, will do, thanks
Dave