Sigasi uses Talkback and telemetry services to better understand how our users engage with our products and to make improvements. Talkback automatically collects metadata about how someone is using Sigasi Visual HDL - only telemetry, no design data - and sends this metadata to Sigasi through a secured connection. By enabling Talkback, you help us improve SVH.

The LSP server process of SVH can be configured to use Talkback. The VS Code client part of our extension instead uses the telemetry setting.

Why Should I Enable Talkback?

By enabling Talkback, you help us improve SVH:

Talkback provides us with feature usage. This information helps us determine which features are valuable for you as a user so we can adjust our product roadmap.
Talkback collects performance statistics that we can relate to the project sizes. Together with our in-house performance tests, this helps us keep the SVH compiler and user interface fast.
Talkback helps us reduce software errors by collecting incident reports from various use cases.
Talkback is automatic and less cumbersome than feedback surveys.
Talkback is required to use our free Sigasi Community Edition.

What Information Does Talkback Collect?

Talkback and telemetry transmit meta-information about your project, operating system, Java Virtual Machine, tool usage, build performance, system statistics, license type, file system paths, and incident reports (stack traces) that occur due to software errors. We also collect MAC addresses, and IP addresses that are visible when a client connects to the Talkback server. Talkback never transmits any HDL code, but it may send identifiers. All transmissions use industry-standard SSL secure connections.

We identify your Sigasi installation and session using a generated identifier, specifically a standard Java universal unique identifier UUID . The installation identifier is stored in your global VS Code preferences, while the session identifier changes every time you restart.

Talkback stores all the information it transmits in a local log file so that you can inspect it. The data is human-readable in JSON format. You can access the Talkback log - to verify what is being sent - through the Command Palette Sigasi: Open Talkback Log Folder command.

Talkback only concerns the LSP server process.

SVH collects telemetry data when an error occurs within the extension itself. We use this data to fix bugs and help guide the direction of the product. Our telemetry transmission is aligned with the VS Code telemetry setting and can be tweaked using the VS Code setting: telemetry.telemetryLevel. Note that this VS Code setting is on by default.

For more information regarding telemetry, refer to the VS Code telemetry documentation .

How does Sigasi use this information?

Sigasi uses the information transmitted by Talkback for marketing and product planning and development. We use it to decide which features to develop and improve, find and fix bugs, and find and fix performance issues.

The information is sent to us through an Amazon Web Services proxy and stored on one of our servers. It is backed up to Google Cloud Services.

How Do I Enable or Disable Talkback?

Talkback is always disabled by default. To enable or disable Talkback, follow the steps below.

Open the Command Palette through Ctrl+Shift+P
Select Preferences: Open Settings (UI)
In the Setting tab, navigate to Extensions > Sigasi for VHDL & SystemVerilog > Enable Talkback
Check or uncheck the checkbox

Telemetry

The VS Code telemetry setting is on by default. To enable or disable it, follow the steps below.

Open the Command Palette through Ctrl+Shift+P
Select Preferences: Open Settings (UI)
In the Setting tab, navigate to Application > Telemetry
Edit the value in the dropdown to suit your needs

What about my Firewall or Proxy?

Talkback uses the HTTPS protocol for data communication. If your firewall blocks outgoing SSL connections to our server, Talkback cannot send diagnostics. Your firewall should allow outgoing connections to https://talkback-sigasi.sigasi.com/ .

Talkback does not support proxies. If Talkback cannot connect to our server directly because of your firewall or proxy server, you are required to purchase a commercial license .

Disabled Telemetry Features Are Against Our Corporate Policy. What Can I Do?

Our Sales Team will be happy to discuss trial options with you.