QCoDeS 0.23.0 - February 2021 update

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.23.0

The February 2021 release of QCoDeS.

---

Improved:

• Commit data directy to dataset cache (#2667) (#2761)
• Removed duplicate get call in _ParamCaller used to acquire
  parameters out of the main thread. This fix resulting in a 2x speed up for multi-threaded experiments (#2712)
• Add pandas and xarray methods to DataSetCache matching the DataSet (#2763)
• Fix to Avoid loading data twice in dataset's to_xarray_dataset method (#2762)
• Add optional tqdm progress bar to doNd functions (#2734)
• Improvment to Station by adding the load_all_instruments method to load everything specified
  in configuration yaml (#2721) (#2754)
• In guid_helpers the regular expression used to read guids from a string represantation of a
  list/tuple of guids was flawed. Improvment to use ast.parse makes it a lot easier and error proof. (#2700)
• Fix for station snapshot of parameters with snapshot_exclude (#2692)

---

New drivers:

• AWG Driver for the Keysight M9336A PXIe I/Q Arbitrary Waveform Generator. This driver provides
  a simple wrapper around the IVI-C drivers from Keysight (#2613)
• Driver wrapper for the Keysight M960X DAC. This driver provides an interface into the IVI-C driver
  provided by Keysight (#2613)

---

Improved drivers:

• Feature to determine the frequency and power parameter validators on the Agilent E8527D microwave
  source based on the installed options (#2690)

---

Under the hood:

• Remove dependency on gitpython (#2738)
• Add two more SMUs to B1500 yaml sim file, useful for testing (#2722)
• Modernize packaging by moving most static packaging data to setup.cfg (#2693)
• Remove left over usage of deprecated get_data_as_pandas_dataframe (#2674)

v0.23.0.dev1

Merge pull request #2720 from jenshnielsen/install_wheel

ensure wheel setuptools and pip is up to date before building packages

0.23 pre release

Merge pull request #2715 from jenshnielsen/keepgithubactionuptodate

keep github actions up to date with dependabot

QCoDeS 0.22.0 - January 2021

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.22.0

The January 2021 release of QCoDeS.

---

Breaking Changes:

• Removed deprecated SD_common modules from Keysight (#2544)
• Removed deprecated add_parameter method from DataSet (#2582)

---

Deprecations:

• Unused semi private functions modify_values and modify_many_values
  are deprecated (#2582)

---

New:

• Add native and convenient XArray data export methods to DataSet supporting
  concatenation, also improve the Pandas DataFrames export methods (#2507)
• Possibility to measure parameters in a separate thread per instrument
  inside doNd functions (#2616)
• guid_helpers: Extracting guids from database files and list of strings (#2541)

---

Improved:

• Ravel data before inserting into DataSet cache (#2664)
• Removed duplicated attributes in channel.py (#2560)
• Fix header levels and section structure in Measurement example notebook (#2624)
• doNd notebook update: the notebook compares doNd with Measurement
  context manager (#2512)
• Allow passing ParamSpecBase objects to DataSet's get_parameter_data
  and related methods(#2655)

---

New drivers:

• Keysight N9030B Spectrum Analyzer (#2553)

---

Improved drivers:

• Keysight B1500: support measuring any number of channels during IV sweep (#2649)
• Add checks for signal current level and voltage level queries in Keysight E4980A (#2561)
• Set signal mode and snapshot_exclude in Keysight E4980A (#2612)
• Add test to ensure that AWG70000A driver throws a warning when waveform is clipped (#2585)
• Add input offset voltage parameter to Basel SP983C (#2648)

---

Under the hood:

• Add support for type checking with Numpy 1.20 (#2499)
• Minor typing improvements (#2546)
• Improved minimum requirements in qcodes setup (#2569)
• Improved tests (#2581)
• Filter google rcp related warnings (#2598)
• Removed unneeded html theme path (#2608)

QCoDeS 0.21.0 - December 2020

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.21.0

The December 2020 release of QCoDeS.

---

Breaking Changes:

• The default behavior of do_plot in doNd functions changed to False.
  The default value can be configured in the qcodesrc.json config file (#2478)
• plotting: Don't scale empty units (#2488)

---

New:

• Example notebook for using Plottr with Qcodes measurements for live plotting (#2494)
• Add kwarg for passing experiment to doNd functions (With tests) (#2526)

---

Improved:

• The old loop and plotting methods are removed from driver notebooks: Alazar9360 (#2477)
• Add PycQED to related projects (#2446)
• Updated HP8753D notebook with doNd and its driver timeout (#2520)
• Add config options for dataset write_in_background and write_periode (#2511)
• filter urllib3.connection related warnings from console logger (#2540)

---

Improved drivers:

• Keysight 34465A: Add missing parameters to pyvisa sim yaml file (#2452, #2493)
• Driver SR86x: Add complex voltage (#2458)
• Fix parameter name in Alazar ATS9870: EXTERNAL_CLOCK_10MHz_REF (#2492)
• Add DC bias and measurement time params to Keysight E4980A driver (#2502)
• Add impedance autorange parameter to Keysight E4980A driver (#2531)
• Keysight B1500: ensure making snapshot of the pyvisa-sim instrument does not raise warnings (#2532)

---

Under the hood:

• Verify that requirements are compatible with Spyder (#2443)
• Require use of Any in all generic types (#2450, #2453, #2454, #2457, #2463, #2468, #2469)
• Minor typing improvements (#2456, #2475)
• refactor logic to find scale and prefix for units into a public function (#2480)
• Use the latest json schema draft supported by python jsonschema validator (#2510)
• GitHub actions cleanup (#2535)
• Update readme badge to point to github actions (#2538)

QCoDeS 0.20.1 - November 2020 update

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.20.1

Patch:

---

This release is a patch for fixing unwanted debug messages shown in the Spyder's console (#2444)

QCoDeS 0.20.0 - November 2020

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.20.0

The November 2020 release of QCoDeS.

---

Breaking Changes:

• When performing a measurement with MultiParameter the parameters are now registered under their full_name including any instrument and channels that the parameter is bound to. This makes the MultiParameter consistent with all other parameters (#2317)
• The Keysight SD_common module is now deprecated in favour of the one in qcodes_contrib_drivers (#2395)
• The deprecated HP33210A driver has been removed (#2334)
• The deprecated Tektronix AWG5200 driver has been removed (#2335)
• Deprecated methods removed from DataSet (#2422)

---

New:

• The DataSet shape is used when loading data; this impacts the DataSet.get_parameter_data and DataSet.cache.data methods. See also the measurement docs for more info on how data are loaded (#2264)
• The Measurement now captures exception info in the DataSet s metadata if an exception occured during measurement (#2327)
• There is now an explicit API for marking the cache of a Parameter as invalid (#2012)
• New support email introduced (#2366)

---

Improved:

• The documentation for ParameterWithSetpoints now shows how to make sweeps (#2351)
• Bugfix: calling mark_complete() on a completed DataSet no longer throws an exception (#2376)
• The documentation no longer references the legacy module (#2408)

---

New drivers:

• Keysight E4980A Precision LCR Meter (#2253)

---

Improved drivers:

• The Alazar drivers received various minor fixes (#2301)
• The Rohde & Schwarz ZNB vector network analyzer now supports CW readout mode (#2007)
• The Keithley 7510 now has a settable buffer name (#2370)
• Bugfix: Ithaco CurrentParameter (#2416)
• Keysight B1500 no longer has master/slave terminology in its API (#2423)
• Agilent E8527D now has a default terminator (#2434)

---

Under the hood:

• Legacy datasets can have a name (#2328)
• Typing was added to the drivers of the following vendors:
  • Lakeshore (#2340)
  • Keysight (#2342)
  • DynaCool (#2338)
  • AimTTi (#2338)
  • Hewlett-Packard (#2337)
  • Yokogawa (#2339)
  • Basel (#2339)
  • Minicircuits (#2355)
  • Signal Hound (#2359)
  • Agilent (#2359)
  • American Magnetics (#2362)
  • Stanford Research Systems (#2365)
  • Stahl (#2368)
  • Oxford (#2375)
  • Rigol (#2380)
  • Rohde & Schwarz (#2384)
  • Ithaco (#2384)
  • Tektronix (#2386, #2393)
  • QDev & QDevil (#2341)
  • AlazarTech (#2396)
• For developers: we now disallow implicit optional with mypy (#2361) and all new code must be typed (#2397)
• Typing added to various modules (#2404, #2406, #2417)
• Prepare for numpy 1.19 way of handling ragged arrays (#2369)

QCoDeS 0.19.2 - October 2020 update v2

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.19.2

Patch:

---

Patch release to support backwards compatibility with pyvisa 1.10 (#2371)

QCoDeS 0.19.1 - October 2020 update

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.19.1

Patch:

---

This release is a patch fix to enable the QDAC driver with pyvisa 1.11 (#2336)

Features:

Automatically expand setpoints of ParameterWithSetpoints when added
to a measurement. This feature was included in 0.19.0 but not mentioned
in the changelog (#2181)

QCoDeS 0.19.0 - October 2020

Changelog for QCoDeS 0.19.0

The October 2020 release of QCoDeS.

Breaking Changes:

---

• A number of long deprecated drivers have been removed:

  • Keysight_344xxA drivers: Use Keysight_344xxA_submodules drivers (#2325)
  • QDac driver: Use QDac_channels driver as an alternative (#2314)
  • keithley_2600: Use keithley_2600_channels as an alternative (#2315)

• In the QDac_channels driver a deprecated parameter (fast_voltage_set)
  and a deprecated method (read_state) has been removed (#2314)

New:

---

• Add optional shape metadata to dataset (#2145)
• Allow string and time/datetime data to be storred in array measurements (#2313)
• KeysightB1511B SMU driver has been added for support with the B1500 (#2278)
• Notebook: Example of how buffered sweep could be done on param with setpoints (#2263)
• Add allow_changes option to set_to method of Parameter, and
  add another context manager for restoring current value (#2220)

Improved:

---

• Station: Take verbose error message when validating station yaml against
  schema (#2282)
• Fix Sequence validator sorted check to work correctly with sequence
  types other than list (#2271)
• Experiemnt widget: sort None timestamps as oldest (#2275)
• Use predefined mock instruments in docs (#2190)
• Support pyvisa 1.11 (#2304)

New drivers:

---

• Alazar ATS9440 card (#2258)

Improved drivers:

---

• AMI430: has_current_rating has been removed in the driver to work with the new
  firmware version (#2291, #2312)
• Small typo fix in alazer drivers (#2296)
• Yokogawa GS200: source_mode bug fix (#2143) and update its example notebook (#2197)
• Keysight B1517A: Improvments for valid voltage and current output ranges (#2278)
• Keithley 3706A: improvements / warnings cleanup (#2318)
• Yokogawa GS200: Add trigger, and program features (#2138)
• Keithley 7510: Add digitizer feature (#2138)

Under the hood:

---

• Filter out telemetry messages in console handler (#2322)
• Docs: add title to home page, and make version bar appear (#2323)
• Small improvements in legacy data notebook (#2295)
• Station example doc: update update_config_schema example to refer to
  qcodes_contrib_drivers (#2272)
• Fix header levels in example notebooks (#2265)
• Fix legacy imports in driver examples (#2249)
• rework 2d tests to sweep over two separate parameters (#2187)
• Update test for get_data method (#2196)
• Fix some of the warnings triggered by numpy 1.19 (#2239)
• Pylint and it's dependencies removed from test_requirements (#2297)
• Expand documentation requirments.txt (#2289)
• Move tests related to qcodes.data loop etc to a legacy folder (#2238)
• Legacy: ensure that datasets have unique names to avoid potential race
  condition (#2276)
• Don't exclude instrument drivers from codecov (#2326)

Dependencies:

---

Please note that these dependencies are only related to requirements.txt

• Update lxml requirement from ~=4.5.1 to ~=6.0.0 (#2300)
• Update traitlets requirement from ~=5.0.4 to ~=5.0.5 (#2298)
• Update nbclient requirement from ~=0.5.0 to ~=0.5.1 (#2299)
• Update zipp requirement from ~=3.3.0 to ~=3.3.1 (#2294)
• Update hypothesis requirement from ~=5.37.1 to ~= 5.37.3 (#2287)
• Update pillow requirement from ~=7.2.0 to ~=8.0.0 (#2286)
• Update nbformat requirement from ~=5.0.7 to ~=5.0.8 (#2288)
• Update iniconfig requirement from ~=1.0.1 to ~=1.1.1 (#2283)
• Update opencensus-ext-azure requirement from ~=1.0.4 to ~=1.0.5 (#2279)
• Update opencensus-context requirement from ~=0.1.1 to ~=0.1.2 (#2167)
• Update opencensus requirement from ~=0.7.10 to ~=0.7.11 (#2280)
• Update prompt-toolkit requirement from ~=3.0.7 to ~=3.0.8 (#2273)
• Update colorama requirement from ~=0.4.3 to ~=0.4.4 (#2274)
• Update codecov requirement from ~=2.1.9 to ~=2.1.10 (#2267)
• Update sphinx-jsonschema requirement from ~=1.16.4 to ~=1.16.5 (#2266)
• Update tqdm requirement from ~=4.50.1 to ~=4.50.2 (#2260)
• Update google-api-core requirement from ~=1.22.3 to ~=1.22.4 (#2246)
• Update pandas requirement from ~=1.1.2 to ~=1.1.3 (#2248)
• Update google-auth requirement from ~=1.22.0 to ~=1.22.1 (#2245)
• Update sphinx-jsonschema requirement from ~=1.16.3 to ~=1.16.4 (#2247)
• Update pytest requirement from ~=6.1.0 to ~=6.1.1 (#2241)
• Update gitpython requirement from ~=3.1.8 to ~=3.1.9 (#2229)
• Update jupyterlab-pygments requirement from ~=0.1.1 to ~=0.1.2 (#2226)
• Update nest-asyncio requirement from ~=1.4.0 to ~=1.4.1 (#2224)
• Update tqdm requirement from ~=4.49.0 to ~=4.50.0 (#2219)