RE: DTS file editing autocomplete, etc.

Dave Littell — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 14:16:20 GMT

Hahaha, completely understood. Once you're in The Club you Just Know and it's all So Much Easier! ;) I'll get there!

RE: DTS file editing autocomplete, etc.

AHaug — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 14:03:46 GMT

Happy to help and I totally understand. If you have any questions related to the topic in here or inDeviceTree Visual Editor catch-22 I'll do my best to answer (within Norwegian work hours)

I will not try to hide that DTS and Zephyr/NCS has a steep learning curve and that the abstraction layer is somewhat.. abstract, which doesn't help when you're trying to set up a demo or develop something under time pressure with limited familiarity with the system, but I sincerely believe that it's easy to use once you get rolling (wow I sound like a Linux enthusiast trying to convince a hardcore Windows user to convert)

Kind regards,
Andreas

RE: DTS file editing autocomplete, etc.

Dave Littell — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 13:30:22 GMT

Thank you for the reply. I'm sure I'm trying to run before I can even slither but that's an artifact of extreme schedule pressure. Thanks again.

RE: DTS file editing autocomplete, etc.

AHaug — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 13:20:20 GMT

Hi Dave,

Glad you're reaching out and starting with NCS and Zephyr.

I'll give you a brief overview here over some very handy getting started resources

https://academy.nordicsemi.com/, our academy pages has fundamental and intermediate courses ranging installing/setting up the SDK to implementing peripherals, BLE and DFU support in your product. All content here is created through the public documentation
1. https://academy.nordicsemi.com/courses/nrf-connect-sdk-fundamentals/ also has an introductory course to DTS and all peripheral lesson goes through how to use the DTS
2. https://academy.nordicsemi.com/courses/nrf-connect-sdk-intermediate the intermediate course expands on the fundamental and has
https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/nrf-connect-vscode/page/guides/work_with_devicetree_editor.html the VS Code extensions "How to work with the devicetree editor"
https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ncs-latest/page/zephyr/build/dts/index.html for the zephyr devicetree documentation
https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ncs-latest/page/nrf/index.html is the landing page for the NCS documentation. Beneath the "Introduction" title, there's a menu you can expand to select which SDK version you're working with and on the left side table of contents menu you can navigate between various topics.
You can also see some tech webinars here: https://webinars.nordicsemi.com/events as well as visit the blogs/guides section of Devzone for some additional reading

[quote user=""]Beyond that, is there some helpful tutorial or documentation for creating a non-trivial DTS for an nRF-based custom board? When I worked with the DTS stuff for embedded Linux a decade ago it was truly all Tribal Lore and a trial-and-lots-of-error horror. Has this improved? I had high hopes for the Devicetree Visual Editor but don't really know where to start with that either for a custom board.[/quote]

Back to your question, I would say the best angle of attack is the fundamental and intermediate NCS courses, which mainly focuses on editing the dts file directly. The intermediate takes it one step further and shows how to create your own custom board and the corresponding custom board files. This should give you a familiarization with how a project uses, sets up and allows for customization of board files.In addition, the link in item 2 above is very useful for getting to know the DTS helper.

When you've gone through the academy courses/the relevant lessons, there is as you say the visual editor, but it requires some familiarity with the SDK/Zephyr and how to use board files in a project.

[quote user=""] Has this improved? [/quote]

It has improved significantly is my understanding when talking to colleagues who's been working with dts pre-Zephyr (or even from early days of NCS).

Kind regards,
Andreas