As X and A's integrated editors are more or less limited, I guess many people will looking for better alternatives. The usual suspects will be Emacs (with VHDL mode) and Sigasi. For me personally, I never really liked Emacs and found Sigasi just a bit too expensive. So some time ago I came across V3S from www.vide-software.at. It is a quite powerful and fair priced VHDL plug-in for Visual Studio (Stand-alone version with Visual Studio redistributable package also available). I could also watch the progress over the last few months and I really like it. The only drawback is the missing Linux support. However, there appears to be a Linux version of "Visual Studio Code". I have not checked yet if this works together with the plug-in. Maybe someone else has? Regards, Thomas P.S.: I am in no way related to V3S, just a happy user. I want to sell you EEBlasters, JPEG encoders and cameras at www.entner-electronics.com, however ;-)
VHDL Editors (esp. V3S)
Started by ●January 21, 2017
Reply by ●January 22, 20172017-01-22
On Sat, 21 Jan 2017 16:36:43 -0800, thomas.entner99 wrote:> As X and A's integrated editors are more or less limited, I guess many > people will looking for better alternatives. > > The usual suspects will be Emacs (with VHDL mode) and Sigasi. > > For me personally, I never really liked Emacs and found Sigasi just a > bit too expensive. > > So some time ago I came across V3S from www.vide-software.at. It is a > quite powerful and fair priced VHDL plug-in for Visual Studio > (Stand-alone version with Visual Studio redistributable package also > available). I could also watch the progress over the last few months and > I really like it. > > The only drawback is the missing Linux support. However, there appears > to be a Linux version of "Visual Studio Code". I have not checked yet if > this works together with the plug-in. Maybe someone else has? > > Regards, > > Thomas > > P.S.: I am in no way related to V3S, just a happy user. I want to sell > you EEBlasters, JPEG encoders and cameras at www.entner-electronics.com, > however ;-)Try Eclipse. They cover a huge number of languages. A nice thing for me is that much of the UI is standard Eclipse, with nice extensions for language-awareness built in. I'm currently using it for C/C++ development, html, and LaTeX -- and I have done Java with it in the past. -- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services http://www.wescottdesign.com I'm looking for work -- see my website!
Reply by ●January 25, 20172017-01-25
thomas.entner99@gmail.com writes:> As X and A's integrated editors are more or less limited, I guess many > people will looking for better alternatives.I suppose. What I remember of colleagues not using Emacs were using Ultraedit in Windows or Nedit in Linux. Others have used something with no language support (KWrite in Linux, Sun's Textedit, also Windows Notepad, even "Edit" in MS-DOS.)
Reply by ●January 25, 20172017-01-25
> I suppose. What I remember of colleagues not using Emacs were using > Ultraedit in Windows or Nedit in Linux.But I think they do not go much beyond syntax highlighting for VHDL. Sigasi and V3S go much further, e.g. with automatic instance generation and "live" error checking. @Tim: Do you have any specific Eclipse plug-ins in mind? I think they are all also just syntax highlighting. (For Verilog there is VEditor, but I think it has only limited VHDL support, too.) But it is some time ago since I checked last.
Reply by ●January 25, 20172017-01-25
On 1/25/2017 7:14 AM, Anssi Saari wrote:> thomas.entner99@gmail.com writes: > >> As X and A's integrated editors are more or less limited, I guess many >> people will looking for better alternatives. > > I suppose. What I remember of colleagues not using Emacs were using > Ultraedit in Windows or Nedit in Linux. > > Others have used something with no language support (KWrite in Linux, > Sun's Textedit, also Windows Notepad, even "Edit" in MS-DOS.)I'm afraid I still use Codewright, which is a great tool still. But it's not under Linux. If I ever get a Linux computer up and running I keep saying I will switch to EMACS. But when I've looked at it under Windows it seems crude and complicated. I'm told once you get up the learning curve it is great, or grate.. pick one. In Codewright I have several string recognizers to allow me to generate any one from any other, entity declaration, component instantiation, signals declarations. Not so much pain until I start altering them. -- Rick C
Reply by ●January 25, 20172017-01-25
On Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 7:36:46 PM UTC-5, thomas....@gmail.com wrote:> As X and A's integrated editors are more or less limited, I guess many people will looking for better alternatives. > > The usual suspects will be Emacs (with VHDL mode) and Sigasi. > > For me personally, I never really liked Emacs and found Sigasi just a bit too expensive. > > So some time ago I came across V3S from www.vide-software.at. It is a quite powerful and fair priced VHDL plug-in for Visual Studio (Stand-alone version with Visual Studio redistributable package also available). I could also watch the progress over the last few months and I really like it. > > The only drawback is the missing Linux support. However, there appears to be a Linux version of "Visual Studio Code". I have not checked yet if this works together with the plug-in. Maybe someone else has? > > Regards, > > Thomas > > P.S.: I am in no way related to V3S, just a happy user. I want to sell you EEBlasters, JPEG encoders and cameras at www.entner-electronics.com, however ;-)As far as "editors" go, take your pick. I've used Emacs almost exclusively for ~15 years. Once you're proficient with something, it's difficult to switch. I use it on Windows and Linux with no problems. It does take a while to set it up the way you like it, but once you learn the commands it's really nice. Other editors used by my colleagues (some that I've tried) include: Vim, gVim, neoVim, Atom, Sublime Text, Notepad++, and SlickEdit. One of the features I use a lot is Rectangle mode in Emacs. https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/RectangleCommands I haven't found a good, easy way to do the same thing in any of the other editors and that alone is a primary reason for sticking with Emacs.
Reply by ●January 25, 20172017-01-25
On 01/25/2017 07:32 AM, kkoorndyk wrote:> On Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 7:36:46 PM UTC-5, thomas....@gmail.com wrote: >> As X and A's integrated editors are more or less limited, I guess many people will looking for better alternatives. >> >> The usual suspects will be Emacs (with VHDL mode) and Sigasi. >> >> For me personally, I never really liked Emacs and found Sigasi just a bit too expensive. >> >> So some time ago I came across V3S from www.vide-software.at. It is a quite powerful and fair priced VHDL plug-in for Visual Studio (Stand-alone version with Visual Studio redistributable package also available). I could also watch the progress over the last few months and I really like it. >> >> The only drawback is the missing Linux support. However, there appears to be a Linux version of "Visual Studio Code". I have not checked yet if this works together with the plug-in. Maybe someone else has? >> >> Regards, >> >> Thomas >> >> P.S.: I am in no way related to V3S, just a happy user. I want to sell you EEBlasters, JPEG encoders and cameras at www.entner-electronics.com, however ;-) > > As far as "editors" go, take your pick. I've used Emacs almost exclusively for ~15 years. Once you're proficient with something, it's difficult to switch. I use it on Windows and Linux with no problems. It does take a while to set it up the way you like it, but once you learn the commands it's really nice. > > Other editors used by my colleagues (some that I've tried) include: Vim, gVim, neoVim, Atom, Sublime Text, Notepad++, and SlickEdit. > > One of the features I use a lot is Rectangle mode in Emacs. https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/RectangleCommands > > I haven't found a good, easy way to do the same thing in any of the other editors and that alone is a primary reason for sticking with Emacs. >I know that Notepad++ (Windows) and Geany (my personal choice, cross-platform) both support column selection, which I think is pretty equivalent to Rectangle mode for most code sorts of tasks. They're both based around Scintilla as a backend; I'm assuming the support goes all the way back to that. -- Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology -- www.highlandtechnology.com Email address domain is currently out of order. See above to fix.
Reply by ●January 25, 20172017-01-25
On 1/25/2017 10:32 AM, kkoorndyk wrote:> On Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 7:36:46 PM UTC-5, thomas....@gmail.com wrote: >> As X and A's integrated editors are more or less limited, I guess many people will looking for better alternatives. >> >> The usual suspects will be Emacs (with VHDL mode) and Sigasi. >> >> For me personally, I never really liked Emacs and found Sigasi just a bit too expensive. >> >> So some time ago I came across V3S from www.vide-software.at. It is a quite powerful and fair priced VHDL plug-in for Visual Studio (Stand-alone version with Visual Studio redistributable package also available). I could also watch the progress over the last few months and I really like it. >> >> The only drawback is the missing Linux support. However, there appears to be a Linux version of "Visual Studio Code". I have not checked yet if this works together with the plug-in. Maybe someone else has? >> >> Regards, >> >> Thomas >> >> P.S.: I am in no way related to V3S, just a happy user. I want to sell you EEBlasters, JPEG encoders and cameras at www.entner-electronics.com, however ;-) > > As far as "editors" go, take your pick. I've used Emacs almost exclusively for ~15 years. Once you're proficient with something, it's difficult to switch. I use it on Windows and Linux with no problems. It does take a while to set it up the way you like it, but once you learn the commands it's really nice. > > Other editors used by my colleagues (some that I've tried) include: Vim, gVim, neoVim, Atom, Sublime Text, Notepad++, and SlickEdit. > > One of the features I use a lot is Rectangle mode in Emacs. https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/RectangleCommands > > I haven't found a good, easy way to do the same thing in any of the other editors and that alone is a primary reason for sticking with Emacs.The description of rectangle mode is a bit complex, how do you get an odd number of characters with an even number of lines? But Codewright has what I think that mode does. They call it block mode and you can cut, copy and paste any rectangular region to anywhere else. I just realized that one of the "oddities" of Codewright has to do with the way they handle the blank spaces with no characters. If you position the cursor on a line where no chars are typed and type anything, it inserts spaces (or tabs and spaces) ahead of the cursor from the last char on the line. This would be important when using block mode in many instances. It's a bit of a pain in that moving the cursor down does not position at the end of the line, rather it just moves down one. You have to press the "end" key to go to the end of the line even when it is to the left. :( -- Rick C
Reply by ●January 25, 20172017-01-25
> One of the features I use a lot is Rectangle mode in Emacs. https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/RectangleCommandsI think most reasonable editors support this, mostly by either holding ALT or CTRL pressed during makeing a selection with the mouse-pointer. In Eclipse it is a seperate mode, toggled with ALT-SHIFT-A, IIRC. BTW: I think most mentioned editors will be good for programming and editing, but for VHDL coding they cannot keep up with V3S or (the more expensive) Sigasi. Check out the videos on the respective home-pages...
Reply by ●January 26, 20172017-01-26
> I had a Sigasi evaluation license some years ago but in the end the > problem was I don't really like Eclipse. I guess Sigasi is still > Eclipse, right? >Yes, Sigasi is Eclipse based. V3S is Visual Studio based. Both approaches have their pros and cons. I guess it is - like the whole editor topic - a question of personal preferences. (I for my part e.g. do NOT like the "monkey work" and also like syntax errors to be flagged before compilation process, which is supported by both...) Regards, Thomas www.entner-electronics.com - Home of EEBlaster and JPEG-Codec
