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Created page with 'The built in text editor in the Xilinx FPGA tools ISE & EDK is sub-par. I have chosen to use an external editor (in my case Notepad++). ISE & EDK behave differently with regard…'
The built in text editor in the Xilinx FPGA tools ISE & EDK is sub-par. I have chosen to use an external editor (in my case Notepad++). ISE & EDK behave differently with regards to their Text Editor Preference Pages & the use is a bit counter intuitive. This article will describe how to setup an Notepad++ as a custom, external, text editor in Xilinx ISE & EDK 12.4 running under Windows 7 64-bit. The process should be very similar for other versions of the Xilinx tools, other text editors, and/or other versions of Windows.
=== ISE ===
#Open ISE 12.4
#Select ''Edit'' --> ''Preferences...'' from the Menu
#Navigate to ''ISE General'' --> ''Editors''
#Select ''Custom'' from the ''Editor:'' drop box
#Type in something like ''C:\\Program\ Files\ (x86)\\Notepad++\\notepad++.exe -n$2 $1''
#*Note the escape characters: ''\'' must be places before all backslashes & spaces
#*Note the ''-n'' command-line switch that tells notepad++.exe which line to set the cursor to
#*Note ''$2'' which is line number we want to look at
#*Note ''$1'' which is the file we want to open
#I suggest you set the ''Constraints entry'' radio button to ''Text Editor''
=== EDK ===
==== Add Notepad++ to the PATH ====
#Right click on ''My Computer'' & select ''Properties''
#Click ''Advanced system settings'' on the left
#Click the ''Environment Variables...'' button in the lower right
#Highlight the ''Path'' variable in the lower ''System variables'' box
#Click the ''Edit...'' button
#Append something like '';C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++;'' to the end of the text in the ''Variable value:'' box
#Click ''OK'' 3 times & close the ''My Computer: Properties'' window
==== Configure EDK ====
#Open EDK 12.4
#Select ''Edit'' --> ''Preferences...'' from the Menu
#Navigate to ''Editor''
#Select ''Custom'' from the ''Editor:'' drop box
#Type in something like ''notepad++.exe -n%line% %file%
#*Note that we don't use the full path to ''notepad++.exe''. For some reason EDK can't handle the full path and this is why we had to add notepad++.exe's folder to the ''PATH''
#*Note the ''-n'' command-line switch that tells notepad++.exe which line to set the cursor to
#*Note ''%line%'' which is line number we want to look at
#*Note ''%file%'' which is the file we want to open
#I suggest you check the ''Automatically sync with external edits'' box at the top
=== ISE ===
#Open ISE 12.4
#Select ''Edit'' --> ''Preferences...'' from the Menu
#Navigate to ''ISE General'' --> ''Editors''
#Select ''Custom'' from the ''Editor:'' drop box
#Type in something like ''C:\\Program\ Files\ (x86)\\Notepad++\\notepad++.exe -n$2 $1''
#*Note the escape characters: ''\'' must be places before all backslashes & spaces
#*Note the ''-n'' command-line switch that tells notepad++.exe which line to set the cursor to
#*Note ''$2'' which is line number we want to look at
#*Note ''$1'' which is the file we want to open
#I suggest you set the ''Constraints entry'' radio button to ''Text Editor''
=== EDK ===
==== Add Notepad++ to the PATH ====
#Right click on ''My Computer'' & select ''Properties''
#Click ''Advanced system settings'' on the left
#Click the ''Environment Variables...'' button in the lower right
#Highlight the ''Path'' variable in the lower ''System variables'' box
#Click the ''Edit...'' button
#Append something like '';C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++;'' to the end of the text in the ''Variable value:'' box
#Click ''OK'' 3 times & close the ''My Computer: Properties'' window
==== Configure EDK ====
#Open EDK 12.4
#Select ''Edit'' --> ''Preferences...'' from the Menu
#Navigate to ''Editor''
#Select ''Custom'' from the ''Editor:'' drop box
#Type in something like ''notepad++.exe -n%line% %file%
#*Note that we don't use the full path to ''notepad++.exe''. For some reason EDK can't handle the full path and this is why we had to add notepad++.exe's folder to the ''PATH''
#*Note the ''-n'' command-line switch that tells notepad++.exe which line to set the cursor to
#*Note ''%line%'' which is line number we want to look at
#*Note ''%file%'' which is the file we want to open
#I suggest you check the ''Automatically sync with external edits'' box at the top