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FPGAwars / icestudio

:snowflake: Visual editor for open FPGA boards
https://icestudio.io
GNU General Public License v2.0
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Please include gtkwave in IceStudio distribution #716

Open zapta opened 7 months ago

zapta commented 7 months ago

I am using IceStudio version below on Mac OSX Sonoma 14.3 (couldn't not copy it as text for some reason).

image

The iverilog and vvp binaries are already included with the IceStudio installation but gtkwave is not. Please include in the release also gtkwave, (unless if IceStudio already includes equivalent functionality).

cavearr commented 7 months ago

Hi! Yes i'm preparing a new wip with it . Un the next days i'm telling you.

Your feedback on how you will use it should be very usefull for me. I'm working in supporting simulation capabilities and the way that you use it should be very important.

I'll updating the state of it in this thread.

zapta commented 7 months ago

Thanks @cavearr, will look forward for it. My minimal need is to have gtkwave installed as part of icestudio so I don't need to struggle separately with its installation. Currently my simulation/flow of a block is as follows:

  1. Verify and build the block in IceStudio GUI.
  2. Exporting the testbench template and modifying it manually.
  3. Running a shell script that runs iverilog, vpp, and gtkwave.

I am not sure how much work you plan doing on the testing/simulation part but I can help with you feedback. Overall I think that it can be along these high level milestones:

  1. Being able to run a single testbench and examining its waveforms all within icestudio's GUI.
  2. A more ambitious goal of introducing the concept of a 'project', with library blocks and testbenches and being able to run all the project tests at once from the IceStudio GUI.

For goal #2, I think that most of the concepts can be borrows from software IDEs, where it's aware of a project (e.g. root folder), areas within the project (libraries, unit tests, configuration, etc) and can perform operations at a project level such as running all the unit tests. Since you are a software developer, you are familiar with those concepts and I think they should work just as well for HDL projects. Similar to unit tests, each testbench has artifacts such as log or waveform and user can examine them after the tests run.

Hope it helps.

EDIT: as an example, platformio (a VS Code plugin) has a good project model where it's configured by a single file called platformio.ini and all the unit tests can be run at once within the IDE. There are other IDEs with even nicer GUI for running tests.

cavearr commented 7 months ago

Fully aligned!!! and thanks for your detailed explanation and ideas!. In short i publish a new wip with the concept of projects (.iceprj like .ini of platformio) .

Thanks again, i'm telling you here soon.

zapta commented 7 months ago

Thanks Carlos!

On Wed, Feb 14, 2024 at 1:20 AM Carlos Venegas Arrabé < @.***> wrote:

Fully aligned!!! and thanks for your detailed explanation and ideas!. In short i publish a new wip with the concept of projects (.iceprj like .ini of platformio) .

Thanks again, i'm telling you here soon.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/FPGAwars/icestudio/issues/716#issuecomment-1943361749, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAQVMQLKWGDR3FK463GZDL3YTR6UDAVCNFSM6AAAAABDHVTRQSVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMYTSNBTGM3DCNZUHE . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: @.***>