Embedded Files
Background
Background
CANeds is part of CANalyzer, a software tool developed by Vector, a company that produces tools for working with CAN and a long-time sponsor of EVT. CANalyzer is able to do many different things with CAN buses, but CANeds is just used to view and edit EDS files. Greater context for how EVT uses EDS files can be found here: CAN Bus Definition. This page will focus on explaining how to use CANeds.
The other thing to note is that the firmware team has been moving toward automatic EDS file generation. The object dictionaries we write in our code have a 1:1 correspondence with entries in the EDS file, so generating an EDS file should be fairly trivial. This script has not yet been written, but it will save a lot of effort in creating EDS files by hand.
Setup
Setup
The first step for setup is installing CANalyzer. You can find the latest installer on the Vector Download Center. Be sure to sort by Version. Historically, we've used the default installation to avoid having to play with the settings, but you can try to reduce how much you install. As a firmware member, you'll likely only need CANeds.
When the installer is finished and you run CANalyzer, the first thing you'll see is a warning "No license for CANalyzer XX could be found". This warning appears because CANalyzer has several features locked behind a paid license. The team has one of these licenses, donated by Vector, but that is generally in use by the integration team. CANeds doesn't require this license, so you can pass by this warning by selecting "Continue".
When CANalyzer first opens, you'll be prompted to open a configuration. If you haven't used CANalyzer before, you'll have to open a new configuration by selecting the "New" tab on the left side. As you'll see, you can actually use any configuration you want at this step, but I would recommend selecting the "CANopen" template from the list of templates. Then, you can create the configuration and open it in a new window.
You should now have the full CANalyzer application open. From here, you'll want to navigate to the "Tools" tab along the top, and select "CANeds", which will launch CANeds in a new window. At this point, you can close the main CANalyzer window, and CANeds will stay open. With that, you can follow the steps below to get started on working with EDS files.
Editing EDS files
Editing EDS files
To get started, you can either create a new EDS file or open an existing one using the "File" dropdown in the top left of the screen. When the file is open, you will be on the "Object Dictionary" tab with three sections:
On the left is the list of available object templates.
In the middle is the current Object Dictionary.
On the right is the detailed view of the selected object.
Objects can be added to the dictionary by finding them in the list of templates and dragging them over. Then, you can select an object to view and modify its attributes. Setting these values properly requires in-depth knowledge of a particular board and the CANopen protocol, so that's out of scope for this guide. If you're interested, you can see an example of creating a TPDO on this integration page. Otherwise, you can refer to past EDS files the team has used or EDS files for components we've purchased, like the motor controller. You may also be able to reference the object dictionaries in code directly, but the CANopen Abstraction Layer (COAL) may make it difficult to trace the macros back to actual values.
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