writing and uploading sketch as cpp file I want to use only *.cpp files and no *.ino anymore. I read a lot of stuff about how to upload c++ instead of arduino sketches. But still I was not able to find a step by step guide how to do it.

Actually I am developing my sketch within Spacemacs (Emacs) and uploading it with Arduino-Makefile (https://github.com/sudar/Arduino-Makefile)

When I now want to start a new project with only *.cpp and *.h files to use classes etc. how would I start? Does anybody has the time to describe a rough step-by-step without the trivial stuff?
See my post about How the IDE organizes things.

Also see my page about how to avoid the quirks of the IDE sketch file pre-preprocessing.

You can certainly manage without .ino files. As Edgar Bonet says, they are really C++ files with certain pre-processing (see link above).


  but what about these loop() and setup() functions


Effectively, the Arduino IDE supplies a main function that looks like this:

int main ()
  {
  init ();    // initialize hardware, including timers and timer interrupts
  setup ();   // user setup
  while (true)
    loop ();  // stuff to be done repeatedly
  return 0;   // this will never be executed
  }


(It's slightly more complex, to allow for USB where applicable, but that is the idea).


  But still I did not found the step by step guide how to do it.


I'm pretty sure there are a lot of example "make" files around which show the idea.

I have an example here.