Using Sublime as external text editor for an IAR Embedded Workbench project

To use Sublime Text 3 as an external editor with IAR, simply go to Tools -> Options -> Editor -> External Editor -> select “Use External Editor”.

Option configuration for external editor

Set Editor to the search path for sublime_text.exe

Use the arguments “$FILE_PATH$:$CUR_LINE$”. This enables IAR to open sublime at a specific line, which is useful when following an error or warning message.

Error message, with line number we want to visit

Sublime editor opened at the line specified in the error message

That’s it! Now we can use Sublime as an external editor and preserve a quick and efficient workflow.

If you would like to switch back to using the internal editor, for instance when using the project indexer to find a function definition or a variable declaration, you can use the “keyboard shortcut”: alt + t -> o -> tab -> space -> enter.

This will take you to the options-menu, and given that the last thing you had viewed there was the external editor page, the tab will select the “use external editor” box. Space checks or unchecks this box, and enter commits the change.