Graphical User Interface

X-HDL's graphical user interface provides an easy to learn, consistent interface for the translation process. Graphical user interface mode is entered when X-HDL is invoked by the 'xhdl3' command from the Unix command line or from the 'xhdl3' icon from the Windows interface.

When invoked, the GUI begins with the main menu as shown below:

The main menu contains a tab widget with 2 pages. The first page, titled Verilog, is used to setup translation options for translation of Verilog source code into VHDL. The second page, titled VHDL, is used to setup translation options for translation of VHDL source code to Verilog. If you have purchased a uni-direction translation license from X-Tek, then only the licensed translation page will be enabled.

To translate a file, simply select a source file and destination directory, enter the desired translation options and press the Translate button found in the main toolbar or in the File->Translate pull-down menu.

You can save the translation parameters using the Save button in the main window toolbar or from the Setup->Save pull-down menu. The Save operation pops up a dialog box which provides the option to save the translation parameters to either the user's home directory or the current source file directory.

The source window also contains a Browse  button in the toolbar as well as the File->Browse pull-down menu. The Browse button invokes the Design Hierarchy Browser. The design hierarchy browser graphically displays your design hierarchy. The hierarchy display shows the design component names and any elements within those components.

The Setup pull-down menu provides the ability to set the Verilog filename extensions and VHDL filename extensions that X-HDL will use. From the Setup pull-down menu you can also set whether the hierarchy browser recurses directories as it processes the HDL files.