Custom Logic Tutorial - Configuring the Custom Instrument

We need to configure the Custom Instrument component. Rather than do this from scratch however (which is outside the focus of this tutorial), we will use one of the key benefits of the instrument – the fact that its configuration information is stored in a separate file. This allows for portability between projects and installations – why build the same instrument over and over when we can just apply the configuration from an existing file!

• Right-click on the Custom Instrument component and choose the Configure command from the context menu to access the Custom Instrument Configuration dialog.

• In the Configuration File region of the Signals tab, click on the Load From Existing button. Use the Choose Instrument File dialog to navigate to, and open, the file AccumulatorUI.Instrument, located in the \Examples\Tutorials\CHC Accumulator folder of the installation.

The configuration information will be loaded into the dialog. This includes the Interface IO, the custom GUI (on the Design tab) and any DelphiScript code (on the Code tab).

Figure 1. Configuring the Custom Instrument at the 'click of a button'.

• On the Signals tab, change the Title for the instrument to Accumulator.

• Click OK to close out of the dialog.

Notice that our design schematic now reflects the newly-configured interface IO for the instrument (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Newly-configured interface IO for
the Custom Instrument.

• Save the schematic and parent project.

See Also