The CE-HDL GUI

Owned by Bill OLeary
Last updated: Oct 24, 2018
3 min read

The CE_HDL GUI. 

After starting the CeHDL tool, a GUI will popup, similar to the one shown on the right.

In the Windows version, a debug console will also popup. This window can be minimized to keep it out of the way, or it can be disabled following these steps described in this section:[ Disabling The Windows Debug Console ]

In the Linux version, the console will not be present, but debug messages will be output to the window where projmgr was started 

The GUI has 3 main sections:

  1. The Top Menu Bar
  2. The HDL Tool Selection Tree
  3. The Status Window


Top Menu Bar

The Top Menu Bar consists of a Config Menu,  a License Menu and the Help Menu

Config Menu

The Config Menu deals with the CONFIGURATION SETTINGS (CSETS) for the tool. Background on  CSETS  can be found here: /wiki/spaces/DD/pages/4111975

  1. View/Set All Configuration Settings
    • Pops up a tabbed menu with all the hidden settings for each tool
  2. Search for Configuration Settings
    • Pops up  a gui to let the user enter a search pattern to find matching settings 
    • If any settings match, another window will popup with all the matched Config settings
  3. Save All Configuration
    • Will overwrite local config file with the settings for every defined configuration setting
  4. Save Minimal Configuration
    • Will write a Configuration file containing only those Config Settings that do not match their defined default values.


License Menu (Note this was added to CE-HDL after the v18.10.1 release)

  1. Print License
    • This will print the details of the current license to the status window
  2. Request License
    • Pops up a Gui to enable the user to request a license from CadEnhance.
    • When finished, a lic_request.txt file will be created  which the user will need to email to lic_request@cadEnhance.com
  3. Set License File
    • This lets the user choose where the License file exists (and sets the CE_LIC_FILE ENV variable)
    • If a Flexera License is used this should point to the server which hosts the Flexera license daemon.
  4. Test License Checkout
    • This will attempt to checkout a license from the configured CE_LIC_FILE
  5. View License Terms
    • This will popup an acrobat reader with the current License Terms File which is stored in the CE_ROOT_DIR/license directory

Help Menu 

  1. Online User Guides
    • Takes user to top level CadEnhance online documentation page (from where you can easily browse through all the CE-TOOL documentation)
  2. CadEnhance Video Channel
    • Takes user to CadEnhance screencast Video Collection
  3. Online Problem Reporting
    • Takes user to CadEnhance problem reporting website
  4. About
    • Shows the tool version






Hdl Tool Selection

  1. Align Launcher

    1. double click to start Align Tool

  2. PinWire Launcher

    1. double click to start PinWire tool
    2. Refer to the The PinWire Gui section for details 

Status Window

  1. This window shows the progress of the startup and communication between CE-HDL and AllegroHDL
  2. Filenames and directories are shown as blue underlined hyperlinks that the user can double-click to open a file or ctrl-click to open a file-browser starting in the directory where the file lives
  3. There are 3 main message types in the status window STAT, DBG and WARN
    1. STAT messages provide progress information from at a high level.
    2. DBG messages provide highly detailed information and by default, they are not displayed in the status window, but they can be enabled with the DBG check box.
    3. WARN messages are printed in red bold font and typically show abnormal status. 
  4. The Status Window can be cleared using the Clear Status Button
  5. The open Status File button can be used to see all the DBG, STAT and WARN messages in a text editor for easy searching