Workspaces

This page explains how legoHDL uses workspaces to group and manage your blocks.

Workspaces allow your blocks to be found and managed for a given context. A user can have multiple workspaces for different contexts, such as for work and for hobbyist designs.

A user configures a workspace by defining a path where all downloaded blocks should exist and which vendors to link to.

Workspaces are defined as subsections in the [workspace] section of the legohdl.cfg file. Here is an example defining two different workspaces.

[workspace]

    [.EEL4712c]
        path    = /Users/chase/develop/eel4712c/
        vendors = (uf-ece, vhd-vault)

    [.personal]
        path    = /Users/chase/develop/hdl/
        vendors = ()

• Workspace EEL4712C looks under /Users/chase/develop/eel4712c/ for downloaded blocks, and links to vendors defined as uf-ece and vhd-vault.

• Workspace personal looks under /Users/chase/develop/hdl/ for downloaded blocks, and links to no vendors.

Levels on Levels

Workspaces manage blocks at 3 different levels: downloaded/in-development, installed, and available.

1. Downloaded blocks are found within the workspace's user-defined path, sometimes called local path.

2. Installed blocks are internally managed by the workspace within a hidden folder currently found at ~/.legohdl/workspaces/<workspace>/cache/.

3. Available blocks depend on what vendors are linked to the workspace, and can be installed or downloaded.

Active Workspace

Only 1 workspace can be active at a given time. This is defined in the [general] section of the legohdl.cfg file.

[general]
    active-workspace = EEL4712C

NOTE: The value for active-workspace must be a case-insensitive match with a workspace section defined under [workspace].