Qcodes

==========================

The December 2019 release of QCoDeS

New:
____

* Call ``start_all_logging`` on qcodes import.
See this example_ for more details on how this can be configured. (1850)

Improved:
_________

* Improvements to dataset notebooks (1813)
* Fix warning in matplotlib plotting for legacy dataset (1839)
* Add electrical delay parameter and function set_electrical_delay_auto for ZNB driver (1849)
* Keysight 344xxA: Fix formatting issues (1851)
* Fix docstrings in parameter.py (1855)
* Update Infiniium.py: add option to save waveform to usb (1716)

New Instrument drivers:
_______________________

* Keysight 34980A driver (1810, 1867)

Under the hood:
_______________

* Move QCoDeS import into function that needs it to break potential circular import (1870)
* Fix return type of _BaseParameter.__call__ (1839)
* CI: Trigger azure pipeline on tags (1837)
* CI: Travis don't apt-get install (1842)
* CI: Travis Explicitly whitelist branches and tags to build (1865)
* CI: Check for consistent line ending using Codacy (1866)
* CI: Also trigger azure builds on release branches (1868)
* CI: Azure twine -r name should match service endpoint (1869)

Breaking Changes:
_________________

* ``StandardParameter`` after long deprecation period has been removed (1859)
* ``Parameter.set_validator`` method after long deprecation period has been
removed (1856)

Deprecations:
_____________

* Setting ``Parameter.raw_value`` (for example ``p.raw_value = 2``) is
deprecated because it can lead to inconsistent state of the parameter.
Use ``Parameter.set`` or ``Parameter.cache.set`` methods instead. (1857)
* Private method ``Parameter._save_val`` that has been spotted in use in
instrument drivers is deprecated now. Use ``Parameter.set`` and
``Parameter.cache.set`` methods instead. (1858)

Recommended Dependencies:
_________________________

* Type checking should be done with Mypy 0.750. (1863)
* Docs are build using Sphinx 2.2.2 (1864)

Release candidate for The December 2019 release of QCoDeS (0.9.0rc1)

New:
____

* Call ``start_all_logging`` on qcodes import.
See this example_ for more details on how this can be configured. (1850)

Improved:
_________

* Improvements to dataset notebooks (1813)
* Fix warning in matplotlib plotting for legacy dataset (1839)
* Add electrical delay parameter and function set_electrical_delay_auto for ZNB driver (1849)
* Keysight 344xxA: Fix formatting issues (1851)
* Fix docstrings in parameter.py (1855)
* Update Infiniium.py: add option to save waveform to usb (1716)

New Instrument drivers:
_______________________

* Keysight 34980A driver (1810, 1867)

Under the hood:
_______________

* Move QCoDeS import into function that needs it to break potential circular import (1870)
* Fix return type of _BaseParameter.__call__ (1839)
* CI: Trigger azure pipeline on tags (1837)
* CI: Travis don't apt-get install (1842)
* CI: Travis Explicitly whitelist branches and tags to build (1865)
* CI: Check for consistent line ending using Codacy (1866)
* CI: Also trigger azure builds on release branches (1868)
* CI: Azure twine -r name should match service endpoint (1869)

Breaking Changes:
_________________

* ``StandardParameter`` after long deprecation period has been removed (1859)
* ``Parameter.set_validator`` method after long deprecation period has been
removed (1856)

Deprecations:
_____________

* Setting ``Parameter.raw_value`` (for example ``p.raw_value = 2``) is
deprecated because it can lead to inconsistent state of the parameter.
Use ``Parameter.set`` or ``Parameter.cache.set`` methods instead. (1857)
* Private method ``Parameter._save_val`` that has been spotted in use in
instrument drivers is deprecated now. Use ``Parameter.set`` and
``Parameter.cache.set`` methods instead. (1858)

Recommended Dependencies:
_________________________

* Type checking should be done with Mypy 0.750. (1863)
* Docs are build using Sphinx 2.2.2 (1864)

.. _example: ../examples/logging/logging_example.ipynb

This is a bug fix release fixing the following issues

* QDac cache returns invalid data (1844)
* Station config validation raises exception if validation failed (1846)
* Make sure `start_all_logging` does not try to reach the internet (1847)
* Fix type annotation for `Parameter.__call__` (1839)
* Add Keysight 34410A driver (1835)
* Keysight 344xxA driver: support the fact that DIG option is always enabled
with firmware version 3.0, also add support for MEM option (1845)


The QDac driver received a thorough overhauling of the `vrange` and `v` parameters. `read_state` has been deprecated.


The Station validation logs the full config file on validation warnings. There has been a bug which caused an exception,
when creating the log message if the station config is read from a file.


`start_all_logging` does a call to `pip list`, which times out if there is no internet connection, because it tries to
update the index. Passing `--no-index` fixes this.

The November 2019 release of QCoDeS

New:

* Introduce 'safe experiment abort' feature: On ctrl-c the running experiment
will be halted, but ongoing VISA commands will be completed and all captured
data will be written to the database, so that the system is left in a clean
state.
A second 'ctrl-c' event will stop the execution without any of those safty
measures and will thereby reproduce the previous behavior of a single 'ctrl-c'.
(1701)
* Added validation of station configuration files, including live
linting and auto-complete features for vscode (1759).
* Enable setting parameters on ``ChannelLists`` in the station config file (1785)


Improved:

* Complete overhaul of the parameter cache including ``GetLatest``.
This improves API experience, removes dangerous bugs as well as sources of
potential new bugs. (1757, 1790, 1789, 1768, 1787, 1788, 1827, 1832)
* Enable logging from multiple processes at the same time (1816)
* Documentation: Add new documentation (DataSet 1715), remove outdated
documentation (1779) and improve existing.
(1780, 1771, 1770, 1781, 1777, 1798, 1803)
* Added more and fixed type Annotations.
(1769, 1797, 1794, 1795, 1807, 1811, 1814, 1815, 1817, 1822)
* Added ``name`` kwarg for initialising ``Measurement`` objects (1741)
* Bugfix: properly write complex standalone parameter to DB (1823)
* consistent ``snapshot_base`` signatures. (1768)
* enable customized log messages for measurement start and end events (1808)

New Instrument drivers:

* Driver for AimTTi Pl601-P (1763)

Under the hood:

* Deprecation decorator for classes (1805, 1806)
* Improved CI/CD (1774)
* Make tests less flaky (1772, 1826)
* Docs build on sphinx 2.2.0 (1783)
* Getting ready for python 3.8 (1793)
* Mypy version 0.740 adaption (1794)
* Consistent linting through ``.pylintrc`` (1804)
* Fix local docs built (1803)

Breaking Changes:

* The ``name`` and ``short_name`` attributes of ``InstrumentBase`` became
read-only properties because it should not be possible to change them on
an instantiated instrument. (1820)
* deferred operations have been removed (1818).

Deprecations:

* There has been a great contribution of community drivers over the years and
and encourage the community to further contribute. To ensure a continued high
quality standard of the 'core' drivers and reduce the latencies of contributed
drivers we split out drivers for devices that are not being used within the
Microsoft Quantum Program into a separate repository that will be community
maintained. Find the ``qcodes_contrib_drivers`` here:
https://github.com/QCoDeS/Qcodes_contrib_drivers
* Module ``qcodes.utils.zmq_helpers`` (1819)

Recommended Dependencies:

* numpy 1.16.4->1.17
* pyvisa 1.10->1.10.1
* websockets 8.0.2->8.1

==========================

The October 2019 release of QCoDeS

New:
____

* Introduce a new kind of deprecation warning (1752). Users, please take deprecation warnings seriously. See also breaking changes below.

Improved:
_________

* API documentation improved! (1725)

Improved Drivers:
_________________

* Keithley 2600 Sourcemeter: now implements a time trace parameter and autorange functionality (1684)
* Keysight 344xxA Digital Multimeter: now implements a time trace parameter (1750)
* Keysight B 1500 Parameter Analyzer: now supports phase compensation, open compensation, clear frequency list, and abort measurement (1704) and reading the error message (1758)
* Lakeshore Model 372 Temperature Controller: Improve the snapshot and add new heater parameter (1746)
* Dynacool PPMS: the tolerance for when the magnetic field has reached its target is now a parameter (1754)

Under the hood:
_______________

* Start supporting python 3.8 (1723)
* Use `importlib-metadata` (1721)
* Fix a bug in `create_on_off_val_mapping` (1732)
* Fix a bug in `get_shaped_data_by_runid` (1735)
* Use `mypy` 0.730 (1738)
* Add type annotations to more of the code base (1739, 1743)
* Require type annotations in more of the code base (1747)
* Fix a bug in the handling of instrument metadata (1740)
* Fix a bug in `GroupParameter` that prevented the use of `initial_value` (1742)
* Make the `set_to` context manager of parameters more robust and faster (1749)
* Make the `get_latest` method of parameters more robust (1751)
* Make test collection faster (1755)

Breaking Changes:
_________________

* Deprecation warnings are no longer issued as ``DeprecationWarning``
but as a new custom type ``QCoDeSDeprecationWarning`` that does inherit
from ``RuntimeWarning``. The reason for this is that ``DeprecationWarning`` s
are suppressed in the output by default.
* Changes to the YAML format specifying the Station. See The `Station notebook <../examples/Station.ipynb>`_.
for examples of how the Station should be configured.

* Specifying module name of a driver as driver and type is deprecated. Instead the full module path should
be specified as type and the driver field removed. (1753, 1760)
* Specifying the limits of a parameter as a list of comma separated values is deprecated. Instead the limits
should be specified as an array. (1756)

The September 2019 release of QCoDeS

New:
____

* Improvements to dataset performance. Especially when doing concurrent reads and writes from the db.
The QCoDeS experiment sqlite database is now created in WAL mode. Note that if you perform a manual backup
of a db in wal mode you should also backup any .wal file along with the .db file. See
https://www.sqlite.org/wal.html for additional details. (#1685)
* New highlevel `tutorial for beginners <../examples/15_minutes_to_QCoDeS.ipynb>`_. (1693)

Improved:
_________

* Improvements to API docs. (1660, 1691, 1702, 1706)
* Notebook Dataset Performance: Correct typos and add figure. (1683)
* Add logging to measurement runner `__exit__`. (1695)
* Link tutorial to "Getting started", "README". (1703)
* Don't use deprecated ``matplotlib`` ``cbar.get_clim``. (1724)
* Make DataSet.paramspecs always return ParamSpec. (1720)
* Add ``Station.close_all_registered_instruments``. (1713, 1726)
* Station: fail hard when adding an ``Instrument`` with a name that is already registered. (1714)

New Instrument drivers:
_______________________

* Rigol DS1074Z oscilloscope. (1652)

Improved Drivers:
_________________

* Alazar: refactor `AcquisitionInterface` out of `AcquisitionController`. (1694)
* Alazar: Fix reference to method in error message. (1697)
* Alazar: Simulator. (1707)
* AMI430: Fix issue with changing field unit. (1599)
* AMI430 test: fix flakiness from asserting timestamps of Parameters. (1718)
* Dynacool: Add blocking and non-blocking ramp. (1586)
* Keysight B1500: Sampling Measurement mode. (1607)
* Keysight B1500: Show connection message on init. (1677)
* Keysight B1500: Edit example notebook to set averaging during sampling measurement. (1696)
* Keysight N6705B: Fix syntax error in parameter. (1669)
* Keysight B220x: Show connection message on init. (1677)
* Keysight E8267D: Add missing parameters. (1705, 1708)
* Lakeshore 325: Add two parameters (resistance, heater_output). (1711)
* Yokogawa GS200: Exclude/Include snapshot depending on mode. (1699)

Under the hood:
_______________

* Significant improvements to import time of QCoDeS. (1678)
* Updates to requirements. (1686, 1690, 1688)
* Use recommended way of running xvfb on Travis. (1687)
* CI: Link commands in all scripts by their exit code, use mostly 'bash'. (1712)
* Make test GetLatest stricter about timestamps. (1719)
* Test using python 3.8 prerelease. (1722)

Breaking Changes:
_________________

* The default config value for ``gui.plotlib`` has changed from ``"all"`` to ``null``. This means the
legacy plot modules ``MatPlot`` and ``QtPlot`` are no longer imported into the top level qcodes namespace by
default. To restore the original behaviour change your config file locally.
* ``capture_dataframe`` is no longer available from ``qcodes.logger``. To use it import it
from ``qcodes.logger.log_analysis``.
* Deprecate old QDac driver in favour of QCac_channels driver. (1578)
* Adding an instrument to the QCoDeS station with an already existing name is now a hard error rather
than falling back to constructing a new unique name.(1713)
* Deprecate ``qcodes.utils.helpers.make_unique`` as it is unused in QCoDeS. (1713)