The Keysight 89600 VSA software provides a .NET Application Programming Interface (API) to control the VSA and retrieve measurement results programmatically.
The .NET API exposes all of the measurement, computational, and display features of the VSA, making them accessible to any programming language that can access the .NET Framework Common Language Runtime, including C++, C#, VB.NET, and third-party tools such as MATLAB. It is also possible to use or create client applications that run on .NET 6.0 and newer, in any of the languages it supports.
The 89600 VSA API is accessed by referencing the appropriate VSA assemblies from your programming environment. For more information on setting up and writing programs to access the API, see Referencing the .NET API and .NET 6+ Nuget Packages.
Macros allow the user to program the VSA without having Microsoft Visual Studio by using the C# and VB compilers that are shipped as part of the .NET framework. However, for a better programming experience, we recommend that you use Visual Studio 2022. If you don't have access to the professional edition, the free Community Edition is freely available from https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/.
If you have 89600 VSA installed on your system, you will be able to create and run client applications and macros that use .NET Framework 4.8 (this is installed as a pre-requisite of 89600 VSA).
If you want to create applications or macros that target .NET 6.0 or newer, you will need to install the appropriate .NET Software Development Kit (SDK) from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet. If the application or macro uses Windows Forms or WPF (Windows operating system only), it must target “net8.0-windows” (or other version with the “-windows” suffix) in the TargetFrameworks property of the project file.
If you want to run an application or macro that targets .NET 6.0 or newer, you will need to install an appropriate .NET Runtime from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet. Applications that use Windows Forms or WPF require the “.NET Desktop Runtime” (Windows operating system only) whereas applications that do not use Windows Forms or WPF can use just the appropriate “.NET Runtime” and can run on any operating system supported by that runtime.
Where to start
The starting place for all access to the 89600 VSA is through the Application class. You can obtain an instance of this class through the ApplicationFactory.Create method.
Once you have access to an instance of the Application class, you can access the various aspects of the VSA application such as DataRegisters, Display, Hardware, Licenses, LimitTests, Macros, MathFunctions, and Measurements. Each of these subsystems contain their own properties and methods.
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You can easily find the commands to automate the VSA by selecting the Show Code check box in the Output window (Window > Output) and then interacting with the user interface. For each operation you perform, the corresponding command will be echoed to the Output window. |