Better Landing Page Please

[PythonLinks]

"You only get 1 chance to make a good first impression. "

It would be better if your landing page looked something like this, with some introductory text at the top, and more info at the bottom.

or even better yet a more complicated example.

I am actually quite tempted to do this. Not right now, I am way too busy. I recently joined a Master's program in EE Digital Design in the Silesian Institute of technology in Katowice Poland (The author of this software is in Wroclaw Poland, and Intel is investing heavily in Poland. )

I am going to try and do my homework with DigitalJS this weekend.

[tilk]

Actually, the landing page did include some example code, before DigitalJS Online got some support for working with multiple files. The current form of the landing page is because one of the use-cases is loading a number of files, for example https://github.com/tilk/riscv-simple-sv, which I use for teaching about CPU essentials. It would be preferable if a redesign did not make this use case harder.

[PythonLinks]

On 14 Apr 2023, at 10:30, Marek Materzok ***@***.***> wrote: Actually, the landing page did include some example code, before DigitalJS Online got some support for working with multiple files. The current form of the landing page is because one of the use-cases is loading a number of files, for example https://github.com/tilk/riscv-simple-sv, which I use for teaching about CPU essentials. It would be preferable if a redesign did not make this use case harder.

If you are using it to teach a class, that is awesome! Put that in the readme of the GitHub repository. “Over the course of 5 years, at the University of Wroclaw, Poland, this software has been used to teach 120 undergraduates CPU essentials. ” Or some such words. Up until now I did not know if I should trust the software or not. Since you are teaching with it, for many years, it must be quite solid. Promote and sell yourself. It will make adoption much easier. So there really are different target markets. Right now the primary market is probably you, and more generally teaching an advanced undergraduate course. There is a much larger user base, which is beginners learning verilog. Which needs a different interface. The one I suggested. But if you do not want to do that, nie mogę narzekać, Christopher Lozinski @***@***.***

[PythonLinks]

A couple more issues.

The first thing people see on the DigitalJS github page is
" Online demonstration for DigitalJS

That is an infinite recursion, since they do not yet know what DigitalJS is.
Instead you should say something like.

"Graphical Verilog Simulator for the web. BSD License."

Now I know whether I want to read more or not, and probably searches on github will work much better.

After I read the README file, the first thing I check out is the most recent commit date. A few weeks ago. Great! The next thing I look at is the number of commits. 127, good enough, and the number of pull requests. 9?? Not so good. Makes it look like you do not resolve the pull requests promptly. Not so actively maintained software. Usually I and new visitors would never dig deeper, and find that they are all useless version upgrade requests. We would be more likely to just decide to go elsewhere.

[PythonLinks]

Here is the feedback you asked for.
This software is just brilliant.
No need to install anything. Just fire it up.
Perfect for teaching where you do not have to install it on everyone’s computers.

In decreasing order of priority.

1. Better error messages would be good, but that is not your fault, those are generated by the synthesizing software.
2. You should notify if you are disconnected from the server and cannot compile.
3. For the outputs you should also do the 7 bit number display. The thing that displays digits. 

4. The ability to move blocks around and have it remember the position would be good.
5. The ability to rotate an input button, so the output is pointing downwards would be nice.

I said great things about it in my class Discord group. 
We should see if we can at least get Silesian Institute of Technology using it.

In the long run, I do think there are some things I can do to dramatically improve this.
Particularly since it helps me do my Verliog homework so much faster, I will have more time free.