Configure recording mode - channel reference

[RVallieu]

I haven't been able to find the answer to this question in the "What's new in DIAdem 11.0" information that I could discern.

When you are on the SCRIPT Panel in DIAdem 10 and you Enable Recording Mode from the toolbar the "Configure Recording Mode" dialog box comes up.

Here you are able to enter:

Author:

Comment:

and under "Recording Behavior" you can select:

Channel Reference: (selection by exclusive radio button)

Name

Number

and also check

Record absolute path, not just filename.

In DIAdem 11.0 the dialog box is different.  Gone is the setting for Channel Reference.

The selections for File Reference are now

Only Filename

Absolute Path

Path Variable

Where did the selection for Name or Number for the channel references go?  Why was the change made?

What does Path Variable give me over the previous selections?

[EadieU]

The built-in DIAdem Help gives explanations of the various aspects of Configure Recording mode.  If you have DIAdem, you can access the DIAdem Help from Start»All Programs»National Instrument»DIAdem 11.0»DIAdem Help

 Configure Recording Mode

Configure Recording Mode

Use this dialog box to specify general settings for the recording mode.

Settings

Author	Specifies the text that DIAdem inserts in the script header for the author.
Comment	Specifies the text that DIAdem inserts in the script header for the comment.
Only filename	Specifies that DIAdem only records the names of the files used, but not the paths.
Absolute path	Specifies that DIAdem records the names of the files used and the paths.
Path variable	Specifies that DIAdem declares the vector variable MyFolders in the recorded script and assigns the paths used to this variable. DIAdem inserts this path variable in the command lines for loading or saving files, of the recorded script. DIAdem uses the paths assigned to the path variable only in the recorded script without changing the default paths of the DIAdem settings. To use the script on a different computer you just change the initialization of the path variable in the recorded procedure InitMyFolders.

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[RVallieu]

What happened to the Channel Settings?

[Walter_Rick]

Hi Ryan,

Since DIAdem 9 and providing TDM as new default file format it was necessary to have a smarter channel addressing which reflexes the TDM data structure in the Dataportal. It is more efficient to specify the channel group where the channel is stored in and the channel instead of a flat number without knowing the channel content.

For example, you've measured three times the same signals and you stored each measurement in a separate channel group. Now it is easy to address the channels by specifying group/channel. And to be most flexible you can use the name of the group and channel, the index of it or any combination of that like "[1]/ChnName" or "GroupName/ChnName".

I hope this helps

Greetings

Walter

[RVallieu]

Right,

I am DIADem 10.2 and  11.0.  10.2 Uses the TDM structure for the loaded data - I get that.

I know about referencing channels by Group, Name and/or Numbers.

In 10.2 When you configure Record Mode it asks if you want to refer to channels by NUMBER in the script it creates for you.  In DIAdem 11.0 it does not ask you this.  This was nice in case you had data sets with different NAMES, but always in the SAME ordinal location within the Group.

The data structure is the same TDM Layout - unless I am missing something.  I just want to understand if the setting went somewhere else - or if we now have no option for recording by number.  I have not had much time to compare the recording modes side-by-side.

[Brad_Turpin]

Hi Ryan,

The number-oriented channel referencing is an artifact of DIAdem 8.x and older versions and really has no place in DIAdem versions 9.x and newer.  You can accomplish the same ordinal referencing you desire by using name-oriented channel referencing:

ChnLength("[1]/[1]")

Now it's perfectly reasonable to request this name-oriented-channel-index referencing be used in the Script Recorder with an approriate dialog setting.  But first we wanted to kill the old number-oriented channel referencing, which gives you this sort of expression:

ChnLength(1)

The problem with number-oriented channel referencing is that it was conceived before the Data Portal or Channel Groups existed, and it has no clean way of referencing Groups.  Also, when you delete channels, all the channel numbers are recalculated, so many times the channel number you still have no longer points to the same channel.  You have more control over this scenario with name-oriented referencing, and the new Channel object in DIAdem 11.0 is completely immune to this scenario.

Brad Turpin
DIAdem Product Support Engineer

Natonal Instruments

[RVallieu]

Ok thanks for the more thorough explanation.