AN30: Poseidon & Damocles Installation Wizard

Applications that use remote inputs and outputs over the network need to have device support added, e.g. using XML. This is easy to achieve with our HWg SDK. However, the user then still needs to connect the Poseidon or Damocles unit to the application.

To do so, one can either prompt the user for an IP address and a port, or search the network for units automatically. The latter, user-friendly method, is exactly what the Installation Wizard supports. The wizard guides the user through the process of identifying the devices, and returns one or more IP addresses of the selected devices to your application.

Source code of the wizard is available in the HWg SDK for several programming languages, together with an example application that calls the wizard.

How to use the Installation Wizard

1) Calling the wizard from your code or application

For details about calling the Installation Wizard, see the following HWg SDK examples:

• EX108: Show Install Wizard (Borland C++ Builder)
• EX208: Show Install Wizard (Microsoft Visual C++)
• EX308: Show Install Wizard (Borland Delphi)
• EX426: Show Install Wizard AX (Microsoft Visual Basic)

2) Wizard welcome screen

3) Searching for devices

The wizard looks for devices on the local network (via UDP Broadcast), or at a given IP address (for devices in another network or in the Internet in general).

As an example, you can enter the IP address of our public demo, poseidon.hwg.cz: Type poseidon.hwg.cz in the "Remote IP" field and press "Add Device".

4) Selecting devices from the list

The user selects one or more devices by selecting the checkboxes.

5) Displaying device details

To display the following screen with detailed information about a device, double-click the corresponding line in the table.

6) Returning to your application

By clicking Finish, the user returns to your application. The wizard passes a list of newly selected devices.

7) Adding IP addresses in your application

The SDK example also lets you try to add a new device when a device is already in use (it is marked as such in the Installation Wizard and cannot be removed).

Summary:

The Installation Wizard is completely free, with source code available in the HWg SDK. It is intended for SW developers and aims to simplify support for Poseidon and Damocles family of products.