Ideas for evolution
Installation on Windows
Windows users find installation tedious: they need a windows distribution of Python, they need a command line console...
- Provide a single binary (single .exe file)
- Or provide an installer
Better integration (Windows)
- HDLmake can call the tools directly instead of generating a Makefile. Usually you need to call HDLmake, then make and then you can work directly on the result (synthesis or simulation). You need to call HDLmake again only when you modify the Manifest.py files. If HDLmake were executing the tools directly, that would simplify the life of Windows users.
Simple GUI
Several hdlmake users, mostly working in Windows environments, have asked for a simple GUI interface.
As a proof of concept of a tool that could be used in Linux and Windows environments, the hdlmaker makes use of web technologies such as Node.js to provide a user friendly graphical wrapper for hdlmake that can be handled from any web browser.
Improve parsers
The parsers written in HDLmake to compute the dependencies are very rough and generate false positive (ie add unneeded modules). It could be possible to reuse existing parser from existing OSS tools, but they are often not written in Python.
Add support for toolchains
In random order:
- Altera (almost working)
- Microsemi