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Summertime: trial period doubled

Posted Fri, 2010-07-09 08:45 by pfaes

It's summertime and things in this part of the world are slowing down. This is an excellent time to try out some new tooling.

We are taking a closer look at Git, Scala and some other cool stuff.

At the same time, we have extended our trial period from 2 weeks to 4 weeks. Existing users who´s license has expired can request a new evaluation license. If you are new to Sigasi, you can subscribe for a free trial and take an entire month to see how Sigasi HDT works on your VHDL project. Give it a shot and let us know what you think.

-- Philippe

Sigasi's VHDL Eclipse plugin ready for new Eclipse 3.6 (Helios)

Posted Mon, 2010-06-28 09:32 by heeckhau

Last week the Eclipse Foundation released a new version of Eclipse, called Helios. The Sigasi team was prepared for this release, and included the necessary changes in last month's release.

You can install Sigasi's VHDL plugin the same way you installed it in the previous version of Eclipse (Galileo), but there is now also a simpler way where you do not have to type the whole plugin installation URL (http://download.sigasi.com/updates/hdt), through the Eclipse Marketplace client.

Installation with the Eclipse Marketplace client is really easy:

  1. Download, unzip and start Eclipse Helios.
  2. Click Help > Eclipse Marketplace…
  3. Select Eclipse Marketplace and click Next >
  4. Type Sigasi in the searchbox and click Go
  5. Sigasi HDT will appear. Click the install button.
  6. The following steps are pretty self-explaining (and identical to the regular install instructions)
  7. Don't forget to increase the heap size for Eclipse!

Vote for us on the Eclipse Marketplace

If you like our plugin, please take some time to vote for us on the Eclipse Marketplace. This will make it easier for other VHDL designers to find us. In order to vote, you need a Eclipse Bugzilla account first. To create such an account, all you need is a legitimate email address: https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/createaccount.cgi

Thanks,
Hendrik.

How to get multiple search result tabs?

Posted Fri, 2010-05-28 14:02 by heeckhau

Sigasi HDT (and Eclipse) allow to perform multiple, simultaneous searches. The user interface is a bit hidden --this is considered advanced usage-- therefore this short HOWTO:

If you do not want the search view to change and start a new search in a new Search view, you should pin the Search view. You can toggle the pinned state of the Search view in with the pin button on the right side of the Search view's toolbar.

Pinned search viewPinned search view

When you pin the search view, the pinned search view will remain unchanged and subsequent searches will be shown in a second Search view.

This works for all search actions (VHDL, text, file, ...)

Key shortcut reminder popups in Eclipse

Posted Fri, 2010-05-14 09:36 by heeckhau

Using keyboard shortcuts makes you a lot more efficient compared to using your mouse. But how to learn all shortcuts in an unobstructive and efficient way?

The users of our standalone VHDL development environment have certainly noticed the subtle popups with the keyboard shortcut, every time you click a button or menu item. This effect is achieved through the MouseFeed plugin. MouseFeed helps you to form the good habit of using keyboard shortcuts.

How can you enable this feature if you are using a standard Eclipse distribution? You just have to install the MouseFeed plugin.

MouseFeed popup for Open DeclarationMouseFeed popup for Open Declaration

Installation

  • Click Help > Install New Software...
  • Enter http://update.mousefeed.com in the Work with field and press Enter
  • Some plugins should appear
  • Select MouseFeed 1.0.0
  • Click Next (2 times), accept the license and click finish.
  • Restart Eclipse

Note

For die hard keyboard fetishists, MouseFeed offers an interesting option in its preference page to enforce the use of keyboard shortcuts (Preferences > Mousefeed > Action invocation). If you enable this preference, every time you try to start an action with your mouse that has has a keyboard shortcut, the action will not be executed; instead the popup will show you the shortcut. This way you are forced to learn and use the shortcut.

Install Sigasi's VHDL Eclipse plugin in Xilinx EDK /SDK

Posted Fri, 2010-05-07 15:33 by heeckhau

The new 12.1 release of the Xilinx ISE Suite contains an updated version of Xilinx EDK/SDK. EDK is now build on the Galileo (3.5.1) version of the Eclipse framework. This fills the requirements to install Sigasi's VHDL Eclipse plugin. So it is now possible to install Sigasi's VHDL plugin in Xilinx EDK, next to the Xilinx plugins.

Xilinx SDK splash screenXilinx SDK splash screen

The installation is entirely as explained in the plugin installation instructions. Just make sure you have write permission on the install location of Xilinx EDK. You might have to run Xilinx EDK as adminstrator when you install Sigasi's VHDL plugin.

Default install location on Windows:

c:\Xilinx\12.1\ISE_DS\EDK\eclipse\nt\eclipse

Default install location on Linux:

/opt/Xilinx/12.1/ISE_DS/EDK/eclipse/lin/eclipse

Finally you can easily switch between soft- and hardware development inside one development environment.

Sigasi HDT running in Xilinx EDKSigasi HDT running in Xilinx EDK

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