The big difference in approach between Sigasi and Emacs VHDL mode is this: Emacs uses regular expressions to make guesses about your code, while Sigasi has a real parser that understands your VHDL code. As a result you get:
- Error messages while you type. The ultra fast built-in compiler gives you error messages while you are typing, much like a spell checker in a word processor.
- Navigation Every declaration is just one button away. Do you want to go to the declaration of a certain constant, signal or entity? Just press F3!
- Mouse-over hovers Learn about any identifier just by hovering your mouse over the name.
- Compile your files Export the correct build order and library mapping of your VHDL files as an automatically updated csv file.
As a special, non technical criterium:
- Sigasi is commercially supported. If you have a question, we can give you an answer. If you want additional services or features, you can contract us.
- Sigasi is built on the industry-standard Eclipse platform. You can combine Sigasi with numerous high-quality plug-ins for version control, issue tracking, code review and much more.
People migrating from Emacs to Sigasi can use the Emacs emulator mode, which offers the same key bindings as Emacs (for example: C-x C-c to save).
Blog posts
See also
- Five reasons why Emacs will always be better (opinion)
- Room for Improvement (opinion)
- Code refactoring: Emacs VHDL mode vs Sigasi (opinion)
- Sigasi Better than Emacs (opinion)
- No VHDL Rename in Emacs VHDL mode (opinion)