Maintaining Instruments

You can perform the following actions:

• To create an instrument filled with signals
• To create an empty instrument
• To duplicate an instrument
• To move an instrument to another layer
• To rename an instrument
• To delete an instrument
• To change instrument properties

To create an instrument filled with signals

1. As a prerequisite, you have added a measure file. For more information, see To add a measure file.

   To know how you can assign a color to a file, see Defining one Color per File.

2. Drag and drop signals from the Variable Explorer or the Configuration Manager onto a layer or layer tab of the configuration. For more information, see To assign signals to a new instrument.

To create an empty instrument

1. Do one of the following:
   • Right-click an empty area on the layer Tabs used for displaying instruments. or on the name of the layer tab and select Add Instrument. The available instrument types are listed.
   • From the Instrument Box View listing all instruments that are available for use in the software., drag and drop the instrument type that you want to create onto a layer of the configuration. When you hover over a non-active layer tab, the respective layer is selected.
   • In the Configuration Manager, right-click a configuration or a layer and select Add Instrument. If you right-click a configuration, the instrument is added to the active layer.
   On the layer, the new instrument is displayed in the foreground and highlighted. In the Configuration Manager, the name of this instrument is displayed in bold.
2. If the configuration does not contain a measure file, the instrument is shown without time information in the time slider Control used for navigating on the time axis, including zooming functionality.. Continue with adding a measure file. For more information, see To add a measure file.

To duplicate an instrument

To see how you can import an MDA V7 configuration and manage the instruments, watch our video Import and Layer Handling.

To duplicate a complete layer, see To duplicate a layer.

1. In the Configuration Manager, right-click one or more instruments and choose Copy.
2. If you want to copy the instruments into another configuration, select this configuration. For more information, see To select the active configuration.

3. In the Configuration Manager, right-click a layer and choose Paste.

   The instruments are added to this layer. If the name is already in use, it is extended by an increasing number.

   After the paste operation, MDA tries to conduct an automatic mapping of the signals from the pasted object and the available signals in the target configuration. In case an automatic mapping is not possible, a file mapping and optionally a device mapping dialog might open. Eventually, signals from the pasted instrument might still not be mapped to signals of the measurement file in the target configuration. Then the unresolved signals will end up in a 'no-match' state. For more information, see To use the "Add or Replace Files" dialog and To map devices.

To move an instrument to another layer

To see how you can import an MDA V7 configuration and manage the instruments, watch our video Import and Layer Handling.

1. In the Configuration Manager, select one or more instruments.
2. Drag and drop the instruments to another layer. For more information about adding layers, see To create a new layer.

To rename an instrument

1. Do one of the following:
   • Right-click the title bar of the instrument in the instrument window.
   • Right-click the instrument in the Configuration Manager.
2. Select Rename.
3. Enter the new name. If the name is not valid, it is displayed with a red frame. Refer to the tooltip Information on a concrete object (e.g. a measure file or an icon) that is shown when hovering over that object. for further information.

To delete an instrument

1. Do one of the following:
   • On the title bar of the instrument window, click the Remove icon. This icon is also available in the preview of the instrument. For more information, see To display the preview via the layer taskbar.
   • In the Configuration Manager, right-click the instrument and select Remove.

To change instrument properties

Instrument properties are stored in your user settings. For more information, see User Settings.

To define the instrument properties, click or use the context menu Properties.

For each instrument property, the tooltip provides a detailed description of the properties and their possible options.