Let’s assume you have some kind of system with hundreds of inputs and maybe hundreds of outputs like an access control system, security system or fire alarming system.
But for your specific installation you only need a few of them and you don’t want to deal with the other 100+ entries. Maybe you have two of those systems connected to the VMS with different configurations (optional).
How to deal with that situation? My first approach was to create a json file which holds the needed configuration and this will be parsed on startup.
But the only way to make the VMS read this file, is on adding the first device of this type in the Management Client. Later changes on this file will be ignored until you delete the device and create a new one.
When the hardware is first added you can of course make the driver answer back with the required number of I/Os, but a more correct approach would be to report back all the available I/Os and then just leave those that should not be used disabled.
An alternative would be to use Update Hardware, which can be done both from Management Client and through the configuration API (but not from the driver itself), whenever a new set of I/Os should be available.
I tried the Update Hardware Method in the Management Client. This only works, on deleted I/O’s. New and updated I/O’s will be detected (regarding the Dialog Output) but the I/O list will not be updated. If I try to replace the device, the new and updated Components will be visible in the replacement Dialog (and mapping looks also correct), but after committing the action, the old configuration will be visible again. Any ideas?
The replace hardware issue is something we discovered recently and it will be fixed in the 2024 R1 release.
As to Update Hardware it should work, but please be aware that the new devices are disabled by default once added, and since Management Client does not show disabled devices per default they will be hidden. You can enable showing disabled devices in the filter bar right above the recording server tree structure.
That did the trick.
Thank you Peter. Have a nice day!
BG
Dietmar