juanmard / hwstudio

GUI editor for hardware description designs

Usage

Since this repository is a proof of concept, no regular/tagged releases are available yet. However, after each commit is pushed, CI workflows produce nightly builds:

• The frontend is deployed to umarcor.github.io/hwstudio. Hence, GUI editor features are ready-to-use without any additional dependency! Note that features related to integration with tools on the host are disabled by default, since GitHub Pages is limited to serving files.

• Users can pick the artifacts from any of the successful jobs in 'push' workflow:

  • hwstudio: frontend along with a Python backend.
  • hwstudio_desktop: frontend packaged as an Electron application.

Python backend

This CLI allows to start a Flask web server. On top of serving the frontend, a HTTP API is provided as a bridge between the frontend and other tools available on the host.

To start the server after extracting the artifact named hwstudio:

# Install dependencies
pip3 install -r requirements.txt

# Start the server
cli.py serve -d ../

Run cli.py (without args) to see all available options.

Development

Use yarn (or npm) to install dependencies to subdir node_modules.

yarn

Then:

# start a server with watch and live-reloading
yarn serve

# or run an electron instance
yarn electron:serve

Last, package for distribution:

# build the frontend only (output to subdir 'dist')
yarn build

# or package it as an Electron application (output to subdir 'dist_electron')
yarn electron:build

Docker images

Use a umarcor/hwstudio:dev container to package as an electron application:

./dev.sh -d

Start a umarcor/hwstudio:run container with runx and x11docker, to test the packaged application:

./dev.sh -d -i
...
~# cd /dist
~# ...