How to Enable Vi or Emacs Editor Emulation in the DVT IDE

Overview

If you are familiar with vi or emacs, you can use your shortcuts in the DVT IDE by switching the editor emulation mode.

Design and Verification Tools (DVT) is an integrated development environment (IDE) for the e language, SystemVerilog, Verilog, and VHDL. It helps design and verification engineers increase the speed and quality of code development and simplify the maintenance of reusable libraries and legacy code.

DVT is built on the Eclipse Platform and is similar to well-known programming tools like Visual Studio and IntelliJ. It comprises an IEEE standard-compliant parser, a smart code editor, an intuitive GUI, and a comprehensive set of features that help with code inspection, navigation, documentation, and debugging. It integrates with all major simulators, revision control systems, and bug tracking engines and provide support for building UVM-compliant verification environments.

Details

If you are familiar with vi or emacs, you can easily switch the editor emulation mode between vi, emacs, and eclipse.

Vi Emulation Mode

To enable vi emulation mode, click on the toolbar button and select vi. The vi command line and mode information show up below the editor. Let's delete some lines using 10dd. Save and close the file using :wq.

Emacs Emulation Mode

To enable emacs emulation mode, click on the toolbar button and select emacs. Information about the current shortcut appears in the status area. Let's delete some lines using Ctrl+U 10 Ctrl+K. Save using Ctrl+X Ctrl+S. Close the file using Ctrl+X K.

Note: To switch back to the eclipse default, click on the toolbar button and select eclipse.

Note: You can cycle through the emulation modes using the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+=.