Regular feedback from users indicates that one of the hardest parts of writing applications for the nRF Connect SDK is dealing with devicetree. Many of the concepts required to understand devicetree are new to embedded developers, and the devicetree language itself does a poor job of exposing them and making them understandable.
To address this, the Devicetree Visual Editor was developed, an intuitive graphical interface that lets you interact with devicetree in a natural way and using an interface similar to the rest of the Visual Studio Code UI.
When you make changes using the Devicetree Visual Editor, the appropriate devicetree code will be written for you and added to your board's .overlay or .dts file. The editor acts on exactly the same devicetree file that you would edit yourself. You do not have to use it, but if you do, you can open it side-by-side with the overlay file and observe the changes as you make them. This is a great way to learn and get more familiar with the devicetree language.
The editor includes lots of features, including:
- A visual representation of the compiled devicetree structure
- Facilities for assigning nodes to pins and vice-versa
- An interactive schematic representing devicetree nodes
- Dedicated UI components for complicated devicetree concepts, such as nexus maps and registers
For this release, the Devicetree Visual Editor is marked as experimental. This means it is just the initial release of the editor, and development will continue in future releases. Your feedback is valuable and appreciated, so please feel free to provide it through the dedicated Give feedback link in the lower left hand corner of the editor!
For more information and comprehensive documentation, visit the dedicated documentation page.