Expose All NI Device Monitor events

[JÞB]

"Without needing to clear "all" associated events, or EVEN opening MAX, I would like the ability to replace NI-USB Device "Doohickey123" serial number "junkgarbagestuff" with another NI-USB device of the same type-  perhaps a pop-up option like.... ""Replace no longer installed NI-53xx alias "gizmo"  with new NI-53xx?""  

Sure would help when I swap NI-xxxx devices amongst systems- especially the USB devices!

[Brad_K]

Hi Jeff,

When you say "pop-up option", are you talking about an option on NI Device Monitor's "New Data Acquisition Device" dialog, or a context menu (right click menu) option? I like the former better:

If there are multiple X'ed out devices of that type in MAX, I would expect NI Device Monitor to display a separate option for each one.

What sort of behavior would you expect for device properties that are configured through MAX, such as accessory type? Would you expect the old device's settings to be migrated to the new device, or would you expect NI Device Monitor to just delete the old device and rename the new device to the old device's name?

Brad

[JÞB]

I guess I wasn't too clear.  I would expect NI device monitor to offer the option to install a new device just as if it was an old device. 

EXAMPLE: my system suffers from a bad USB 5331 digitizer alias "Scope0" (I opened MAX and it failed its self-test so I know its going back for repair.) OR it is time for the Digitizer to go to the cal lab for regular maintainence.  Because I have a good Idea about logistics I have a spare USB-5331 (they are nice to have around.)  Currently I need to clear the old devices alias, install the new digitizer, and rename the alias,  for other DAQmx devices I may need to create associations and other configuration steps all prone to error.  This potentially introduces errors into a system that worked except for the faulty device.  Additionally the maintainer may not know all of the developers use cases for device "Scope0" and although his test doesn't use that "advanced" function the next test the system runs is broken.

Having the Devmon option to "Replace "Scope0" with this device" would simply copy all configurations, tasks, aliases the whole shooting match programatically.  Now I have a system RELIABLY fully restored with one click  while the user is watching the hour glass roll for 2-3seconds. 

Ditto for MAX- since I often "Take no action." and I might have had the new unit plugged in for troubleshooting to find the bad unit.  Selecting the new 5331 in MAX >devices should allow "Replace-Swap" this device for "Scope0."  From MAX I could even 1 click UPGRADE to that faster 5332 device.  Or even replace a 6008 with a 6218- Yes! I would expect a warning on any differential AI tasks that wires need to be moved and I would expect this updater to look for project tasks and tasks in LabVIEW exes using the alias. 

The inverse say swapping a 6218 for a 6008 would offer "Do NOT import this task" or "Reconfigure this task" for tasks that do not have a 1-1 correlation in resources.  This gets the system running again with minimal down time (possibly degraded but, I knew that from the warnings)

Finally, My application would IDEALLY not care- Replace the device hit RUN on MyApp.  The System Configuration API lets me know that the device I am EXPECTING "Scope0" isn't installed so since All the nice stuff is exposed and we have the methods above my App can determine a suitable unused new 5331 exists and programatically "swap device" with or without warnings.  Then go chugging happily running with the new 5331

[johnsold]

Jeff,

Good point.  Certainly for direct one-to-one replacements with the same type of device, very little, if any changes should be required.

The exchange of different devices which can perform the same tasks should also be made as simple as possible. Some warnings may be appropriate in such cases.  If the task is to measure signals on a +/- 1 V range at 100 S/s, almost any device can be used. The driver should not care.

These should be changes an operator might be allowed to make without program changes. 

Lynn