4. ARDUINO LIBRARIES

4.1       Introduction to Arduino Libraries

Arduino IDE comes with plenty libraries that you can call and use in your sketches. Although there are some 3rd party libraries that you must download and install. These libraries are usually specific to some components and sensors that you want to connect to your Arduino. It is therefore important for you to know how to install such libraries.

4.2       Installing the Arduino Libraries

There are three main ways of installing Arduino libraries;

4.2.1        Downloading the library from the Library Manager

You can directly download and install the library from the library manager by following Sketch>Include Library>Manage Libraries on the menu bar. Once you click Manage Libraries on the dropdown list, the Library Manager window shown in figure below will pop up. You can then search for and install the library from the Library Manager.

Fig. 4. 1 Library Manager window

4.2.2        Adding .ZIP library

The second way of installing library onto the Arduino IDE is by adding a genuine zipped Arduino library. You first need to download the zipped library from your favorite browser and mark the directory of download. You can then install the library by following Sketch>Include Library>Add .ZIP Library on the menu bar. Once you click Add .ZIP Library on the dropdown list, the window (dialogue box) shown in figure below will pop up. You can then find the zipped library you have just downloaded and then click open on the dialogue box to install the library.

Fig. 4. 2 Open file dialogue box

4.2.3        Manually Copying and Pasting the into the libraries folder.

One can also install the library by manually copying and pasting it in the libraries folder of the Arduino. If you are having Windows Operating System, then the Arduino libraries folder is found in C:\Users\username\Documents\Arduino\libraries.

You should make sure that the library is first unzipped before copying and pasting it in the Arduino libraries folder. Also be sure to restart your Arduino IDE for the manually copied and pasted library to work.