Device Naming

NETMF & Gadgeteer
1

I’ve discovered that working with multiple devices simultaneously on the same computer is a real PITA. They both want to be named usbizi_usbizi and the second one plugged in gets “usbizi_usbizi(2)” but that might just change at random depending on device reboots, etc. So, despite you may have never closed VS the device you think you’re connecting to may just change or you may end up with multiple debug sessions on the same device. Don’t ask me how that’s possible…VS seems to think it’s successful at it occasionally though…

So, what I would love to see is the ability to name our devices ourselves. For example, if I could override “usbizi_usbizi” for both devices and instead call one “copter” and the other “remote” then I think this could be avoided assuming VS would actually remember the name of the device but that’s another issue that will need to be addressed with Microsoft.

Depending on the nature of your project, this problem could lead to a potentially dangerous situation if you ended up deploying code to the wrong device.

2

I second this request.

3

Like the way you can rename the EMX/Embedded Master?

I don’t have a Panda with me, so I can’t try, but I don’t think the MFDeploy can rename a panda. :frowning:

Would be nice though!

4

Yes, would be very nice.

5

No input from GHI?

My debug cycle time has essentially been doubled right now due to this problem. In order to make sure I’m sending code and debugging the correct device, on every debug run I have go through these steps…

  1. Unplug USB from all devices.
  2. Plug in first device.
  3. Make sure the corresponding VS project properties have the correct device configured.
  4. Run debug session for first device.
  5. Plug in 2nd device.
  6. Make sure the corresponding VS project properties have the correct device configured.
  7. Run debug session for 2nd device.
    …

So, you can see there are 3n+1 steps required to start up a debug session depending on the number of devices in the system you are debugging. A royal PITA.

I checked mfdeploy and when you try setting the USB name it comes back and says “Device has old or unsupported configuration”. So, apparently the ability is there it just needs to be supported in the firmware.

6

No input because we already know about this :slight_smile: We often have many devices plugged at once and we wished for a way to rename them. It is still on our list of improvements.

This can be done already on EMX (FEZ Cabra) but not on the baby devices!

7

Any chance it’s coming with 4.2?

8

possible