The main IDE for the STM32-series microcontrollers (MCUs). The CubeIDE contains a variety of built-in libraries, user-friendly interfaces for enabling MCU peripherals (relatively speaking), and in-circuit debugging for testing in hardware.

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Setting Up

(adapted from the original)

  1. Navigate to the IDE homepage, scroll down to the “Get Software” section, and click the “Get Latest” button besides your platform.
  2. Create an ST account, or if you already have one, sign in. You may need to repeat step 1 after signing in. Accept the License Agreement and download the installer (expect ~5-10 GB).
  3. Follow the steps shown in the installer, and accept any security warnings that appear, then open the IDE.
  4. Choose a folder to act as a workspace (this is where project data is stored by), and check the default box, then click Ok.

You might get more security or firewall warnings when launching the app, or running the debugger. This is normal, so accept all warnings and requests (ex. grant Windows Firewall permissions for both private and public networks).

<aside> 💡 When switching branches in Git, you may notice the project name doesn’t change in the IDE. You can fix this by deleting the project (right-click the project, select Delete, and leave the “Delete project contents on disk” checkbox). Then you can readd the project the regular way and the correct name will be shown.

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[Optional] The First Project

  1. Creating a Project From Scratch
    1. Click Start new STM32 Project
    2. The first page you’ll see is a MCU or Board selector. You would search for the particular MCU or board you’re using. In the case of this guide you’d look for the NUCLEO-G474RE or preferably NUCLEO-H743ZI2 board under the Board Selector tab. You can use the search bar on the left to speed this up.

  1. Click next once you’ve selected the board.
  2. Name the project UART Example and set the same settings as the below picture

e. Click Finish and let the peripherals initialize in their default modes. Let the project switch to the CubeMX view as that’s the pin planner and code generation tool. Also the FW (firmware) packages will be downloaded for the particular MCU and Board.

  1. CubeMX - Pin Planner and auto code generation tool
    1. The first screen you should see should be the Pinout view, an overview of all the pins on the MCU. The pin planning and configuration is saved in a .ioc file.