QCoDeS 0.37.0

[jenshnielsen]

QCoDeS 0.37.0 (2023-01-26)

Breaking Changes:

• InstrumentBase.ancestors now returns a tuple of ancestors
  to the current Instrument, InstrumentChannel or InstrumentModule and not a list.

  dond , do1d etc. now returns tuples of Matplotlib axes and colorbars
  when plotting and not lists. Refactor types to check with pyright #4894

• Datasets are now exported to a folder next to the database by default rather then to the users home folder.
  Note that if you had specifically configured this in a local config file this should be updated too for the
  change to take effect. Add export location config #4899

• DriverTestCase has been moved from qcodes.instrument_drivers.test to qcodes.tests.driver_test_case. Move DriverTestCase to the test module #4922

• qcodes.instrument_drivers.VoltageDivider and qcodes.instrument_drivers.devices.VoltageDivider has
  been deprecated. Its functionality is better implemented in qcodes.parameters.DelegateParameter which
  is also significantly better tested and more general. Move VoltageDivider into parameters and deprecate #4923

• The QDevil QDAC 1 driver has been migrated to qcodes_contrib_drivers and is included from version
  0.18.0. The driver in QCoDeS is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Deprecate QDevil QDAC 1 driver #4932

• Remove deprecated Mercury iPS driver
  qcodes.instrument_drivers.oxford.mercuryiPS.MercuryiPS,
  use qcodes.instrument_drivers.oxford.OxfordMercuryiPS
  instead. remove deprecated Mercury driver #4936

Improved:

• When a dataset is exported an optional user supplied entry point is called. See
  here <../examples/DataSet/Exporting-data-to-other-file-formats.html#Automatically-post-process-exported-datasets.>__
  for more details. Add dataset export entry point #4857
• PyVISA 1.13 is now supported. Allow Pyvisa 1.13 #4895
• validate method of DelegateParameter now also validates the given value
  against the validator of the source parameter (if source parameter is present). Fix: DelegateParameter.validate also validates the source parameter #4870
• The dataset logic has been updated to ensure that if you set an already completed
  dataset as completed the completion timestamp will not be updated. make it a no op to mark a run completed twice #4876
• Update the pyqtgraph plot backend for upstream changes in pyqtgraph. Update scale transformation in pyqtgraph plot #4886
• QcoDeS is now typechecked with Pyright in addition to mypy. This should give a significantly
  better user experience when working in VS Code. Check pyright in CI #4938

Improved Drivers:

• The Minicircuits USB SPDT driver now supports running with the more modern version of the driver DLL mcl_RF_Switch_Controller_NET45.dll Minicircuits 4SPDT driver fix for .NET 4.5+ versions #4623

• Two parameters are added to the Keysight.N51x1 class, conditioned on it having the 'UNW' option:
  1. Having the pulse modulation status on or off.
  2. Setting it to 'internal' or 'external'.

  From the Keysight manual:
  1. This command enables or disables pulse modulation for the selected path.
  2. This command sets the source of the pulse modulation. Add the option to set pulse modulation in the Keysight N51x1 signal generators #4840

Under the hood:

• Improve performance of parameter validator. Reduce overhead in parameter validation #4887

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This discussion was created from the release QCoDeS 0.37.0.