Sigasi Studio 4.11

The Sigasi Studio 4.11 release continues to improve your Verilog, VHDL and SystemVerilog coding experience. This release brings many improvements. We introduce VHDL 2019 support, improved block diagrams and much more. Read on for more details.

We are also trying something new: a quick feedback question for our next release:

We received many questions to change the way we generate documentation for ports and generics tables. We currently add comments on a separate line, but a lot of people told us they would prefer the comment in a fourth column instead. Cast your vote on https://www.sigasi.com/poll/ .

VHDL 2019

This release introduces VHDL 2019 into Sigasi Studio. To make use of the improved language features and APIs you need to set your VHDL project (or a single file) to VHDL 2019 and update the std and ieee libraries:

Update the project version: Right click the project (or file) and select Properties > VHDL Version > VHDL 2019.
Update the std and ieee libraries: Right click the Common Libraries folder, and select Set Library > Reset Common libraries

We have made a screencast to demonstrate this.

The following VHDL 2019 features are now supported:

All the new VHDL 2019 APIs in the updated std and ieee libraries

Functions now know the type of the receiver of the return value

  function convert_to_slv(constant i: in integer) return TResult of std_logic_vector is
    variable result: TResult;
  begin
    -- Can now access attributes of the receiver of this return value
    result := std_logic_vector(to_signed(i, result'length));
    return result;
  end function;

  -- Now we can do the following
  x <= convert_to_slv(i);

  -- Instead of
  x <= std_logic_vector(to_signed(i, x'length));

The ending component keyword in a component declarations is now optional
A trailing semicolon in port, generic and parameter lists is now allowed
Parameters of impure functions can now have inout and out modes
record declarations can now be empty

Qualified expressions’ operand is now optional

  -- Value of "abc" is an empty value of the type std_logic
  constant abc : std_logic := std_logic'();

Improved syntax of power expressions (**)
when-else and unaffected expressions are now allowed in return statements
Sequential block statements

Other VHDL improvements

Default values for generics are now part of the autocompleted component declaration
Quick fix multiple capitalization issues at once in the problems view
Improved auto indentation for procedures
Improved alignment during formatting of procedure arguments
Added a new linting check to detect index out of range and incorrect size for arrays

Block Diagram improvements

Sigasi Studio 4.11 also brings many improvements to the Block Diagram view.

We improved the Verilog and SystemVerilog code analysis which refined the displayed connections. We also improved the way we draw connections which results in speed improvements.

In addition we also added support for:

Verilog generate blocks
VHDL block statements
Mixed language direct instantiations: Verilog modules are now displayed in VHDL architectures and VHDL entities in Verilog modules.

Verilog and SystemVerilog improvements

Reduced memory consumption and improved code analysis speed, especially when you are using parameterized classes
Added the option to format on save
When SystemVerilog .sv-files are used as include files, they are now automatically only analyzed as include file and not as as regular SystemVerilog source file. This results in fewer unexpected syntax error messages.
Anonymous UDP instances are now shown in the outline
Added New SystemVerilog File wizard
Added a new linting check to detect > 32-bit parameter initialization without width specification (STARC Verilog, rule 1.1.4.9)
Added a new linting check to detect improper use of 4-state net date types
Added a new linting check to report when there are multiple statements on the same line
Support conditional operator (ternary operator) in transitions of state
Improved checking of duplicate, unresolved, too many or missing formals in instantiations

Other New and Noteworthy Changes

Improved monitoring and canceling of external compilers
We now show a warning dialog when you select Set Library > Reset library mapping to make sure users do not accidentally reset their library mappings (Note that this is recoverable by opening the .library_mapping.xml file and reverting it to an earlier version)
The Report Encrypted Regions check no longer underlines whole regions with red squiggly lines. It now shows just one marker instead
Improved error reporting for documentation export when the exported resources already exist and can’t be overwritten
Improved punctuation in our messages
Split of simulation arguments to a separate field in the toolchain preferences for GHDL
We updated Eclipse in the standalone Sigasi Studio to Eclipse 2020-12
Improved hovers in Graphics Configuration files hovers
Updated the Xtext dependency to 2.24.0
Chromium was Updated to 76.0.12
Sigasi Studio is now bundled with a Java 15 runtime environment. We also improved the way we bundle the JRE in Sigasi Studio. It is now bundled as an updatable feature. So from now on, the JRE is automatically updated with Sigasi Studio.
Note that you may run into the error dialog below, when you restart Sigasi Studio after the update because the JRE has changed. If you close the dialog, and restart Sigasi Studio manually, everything should work as expected

ALINT Deprecation warning

We plan to remove the legacy ALINT implementation in Sigasi Studio in the next release (4.12). We assume everybody has updated to the newer ALINT-PRO by now.

Bug fixes

Fixed random hover errors in unsaved editors
Fixed disappearing edges on hover in nested states in statemachines
Aligned case-sensitivity of Graphics Configuration files to VHDL and Verilog
Removed context menu from the documentation view
Fixed unexpected sound effect when opening the documentation view
Fixed running of all VUnit tests in a project
Fixed broken editor when file for the editor was removed while Sigasi Studio was not running
Renaming a graphics configuration file while it’s open in an editor now works as intended
Fixed an error when quickly pressing the buttons in Block Diagram view toolbar
Fixed graphics not using all available space when scaling is enabled in the OS
Made suppressing of tutorial project creation work again
Allow Sigasi Studio to be used as external editor in Vivado on Linux again
Fixed the Set Top button in the Hierarchy View when editing external files
Fixed a rare case in which the cursor jumped to the start of the file after formatting
[VHDL] Fixed structured selection no longer selecting single words
[VHDL] Fixed corruption of VHDL outline, block diagram and hovers in unmapped files
[VHDL] Fixed a rare issue when formatting aggregates with named associations
[VHDL] Fixed hover for bitstring literals
[VHDL] Added an autocomplete template for procedure prototypes
[VHDL] Now allow (micro)seconds without a space between the numeral and the unit for time literals
[VHDL] Fixed scoping/linking issue with declarations in block statements
[VHDL] Improved the internal VHDL interpreter (hovers, linting)
[Verilog] We no longer show errors in the problems view for files that are excluded from build and are not included anywhere
[Verilog] Fixed linking support for randsequence in broken code
[Verilog] Fixed outline rendering for nested types
[Verilog] Fixed false positive in 4-state net type validation
[Verilog] Fixed false positive warning for default type arguments when class was declared as forward typedef before
[Verilog] Fixed false positive error for property operators
[Verilog] Fixed false positive error for multiclock SVA properties
[Verilog] Fixed false positive error for SVA property operators with always as an operand
[Verilog] Fixed false positive error for first_match in sequences
[Verilog] Fixed missing autocomplete for `include files
[Verilog] Fixed preprocessing when an `include directive is directly followed by more tokens
[Verilog] Fixed false positive errors and warnings in include files that are excluded from build but are included in files that are in the build

A lot of other issues we could fix thanks to your Talkback reports

System requirements

Sigasi Studio Standalone is supported on:
- Windows: Windows 10 (64 bit) or newer
- macOS 10.15 Catilina or newer
- Linux: Red Hat Enterprise Linux RHEL 7.7 (64 bit) or newer
  - Sigasi Studio depends on libXss.so which can be obtained by installing libXScrnSaver
- More information on supported OSes can be found on the Eclipse website
Sigasi Studio as Plugin in your own Eclipse installation:
- Eclipse 4.8 Photon up to Eclipse IDE 2021-03
- Java JRE 11

We recommend at least 4GB of memory available for Sigasi Studio, and you need about 300MB of free disk space.

Sigasi Studio 4.11.1 point release

On March 30 we released Sigasi Studio 4.11.1. This release fixes the following reported issues:

Allow correct updates/installation of Sigasi Studio Eclipse Plugin in recent Eclipse installations (in particular Eclipse 2021-03 )
[VHDL] Fixed formatting for specific types of port map and aggregate combinations
[VHDL] Allow formatting of files that contain encrypted regions
[VHDL] Enabled the VHDL 2019 Quick Fix for all VHDL 2019 related errors
[Verilog] Improved highlighting of localparams in dark themes
[Verilog] Fixed a rare issue where hovers were not being shown

Thanks for all the bug reports and enabling Talkback.