User guide

Welcome to the Nios II IDE

need to create, build, run, and debug within the Nios II IDE. You can do C/C++ source

code and file searches on your projects by creating a project index.

The Nios II IDE stores your projects in a directory called a workspace. You can define one

or more workspaces, as well as select the workspace to use for the current IDE session

using the Workspace Launcher dialog box.

Customizing Nios II IDE Preferences:

The Nios II IDE provides preferences to customize the IDE. The Eclipse IDE framework

offers user preference pages for all the Eclipse C/C++ Development Toolkit (CDT) plug-

ins. User preference pages let you define and control the look, feel, and behavior of your

workbench. Some preference pages are part of the standard Eclipse environment and

other preference pages are specific to the Nios II IDE.

The following topics describe Nios II IDE preferences pages that affect how the Nios II IDE

builds, stores, runs, and debugs projects.

Nios II Page (Preferences Dialog Box)

New Projects Page (Preferences Dialog Box)

Trace page (Preferences Dialog Box)

Getting Help

The Nios II IDE provides an extensive help system that covers all aspects of the Nios II IDE.

This topic you are reading now is part of the IDE help system.

There are two ways to open the help system:

Click Help Contents on the IDE Help menu to launch the help system, then click Nios

II IDE Help in the Contents pane. You can browse through topics in the Contents

pane, or use the Search box to search for a specific term across all help topics.

You can also press F1 on Windows and Shift-F1 on Linux systems at any point in the

IDE to display context sensitive help. A simple description appears either in a tool-tip

or in the Help view, depending on your Help preference settings. If Altera-specific help

is available, you will see a Nios II Help link. Click the link to jump to the topic in the

help system.

Note: The Nios II IDE help system might not function properly on browsers older than

Firefox 1.0.7, Internet Explorer 6.0, Mozilla 1.7.12, Netscape Navigator 8.1, and Opera

8.5.1. In some older browsers, expandable text indicated by does not work. Click

Show All in the upper-right corner to expand all text in the topic.

In addition to Altera-specific content, the Nios II IDE help system includes the Eclipse

Workbench User Guide and the CDT C/C++ Development User Guide. Altera-specific content

overrides any information found in the Eclipse or CDT user guides. Specifically, Eclipse and

CDT help topics relating to creating, building, and debugging projects are invalid. See the Nios

II IDE Help topics instead.

The help browser only works while the Nios II IDE is running. If the browser stays open after

you close the IDE, the navigation stops working.