If you intend to ship a software application based on the FrontPanel SDK, there are a few things you will need to consider in order to improve the user experience of your customers. Please consider the notes below when packaging your software for distribution.

The FrontPanel DLL, Python, Java, and C# libraries depend on the Microsoft Visual C++ runtime libraries. These are installed by the Microsoft Visual Studio C++ Redistributable. Please see the FrontPanel release notes to determine which version of the redistributable corresponds to the FrontPanel libraries in that release.

You’ll need to include the following in your software release:

1. FrontPanel Library – DLL or corresponding libraries for Python, Java, or C#. Note that the bitness of this must match the bitness of your software application.
2. FrontPanel Driver – Use the DriverOnly installer and run this installer during your application installation process.
3. Microsoft Visual Studio C++ Redistributable (for FrontPanel) – Install and run this redistributable package. Note that the bitness of this must match the bitness of the FrontPanel Library.
4. Microsoft Visual Studio C++ Redistributable (for your application) – Install and run this redistributable package. Note that this may or may not be the same version as the one used for FrontPanel.

It is a good idea to test your software application on a fresh installation of Windows. The recommended way to do this is with a Virtual Machine (e.g. VMWare):

1. Install the appropriate version(s) of Windows into one or more virtual machines.
2. After the installation and first update of Windows, make a snapshot.
3. Test your application installer, making sure to check device enumeration and proper communication with your application.
4. Once testing is complete, reset your VM to the snapshot.

This process provides an efficient way to test on a clean installation. Once drivers and libraries are installed, the system can make changes that persist even if you uninstall your application. This makes it difficult to truly test the usability of your installer as the test machine is now “tainted” and may not behave in the same manner as a customer’s system.

This class is the workhorse of the FrontPanel API.  It’s methods are organized into three main groups: Device Interaction, Device Configuration, and FPGA Communication.

In a typical application, your software will perform the following steps:

1. Create an instance of okCFrontPanel.
2. Using the Device Discovery methods, find an appropriate product with which to communicate and open that device.
3. Configure the device PLL (for devices with an on-board PLL).
4. Download a configuration file to the FPGA using ConfigureFPGA(...).
5. Perform any application-specific communication with the FPGA using the FPGA Communication methods.

Once an available device has been opened, these methods allow you to configure it’s available features such as PLL settings and EEPROM parameters and to download configuration data to the FPGA.

Once the FPGA has been configured, communication between the application and the FPGA hardware is done through these methods.  The FPGA is connected directly to the bridge device (USB microcontroller or PCIe bridge) on the XEM.  These methods communicate through that connection and require that an instance of the HDL module okHostInterface be installed in the FPGA configuration.

A brief description of the API methods is in the table below.  The way the API and FrontPanel HDL modules communicate is described in more detail later.