Transparency in Portal 2.1.26

[WilliamM]

I am using Portal 2.1.26 which I believe is the latest version at this time. I have a script in which I cross connect UART0 with STDIO. To verify that the node was talking to my external device correctly, I enabled the transparent mode (Intercept STDOUT) in Portal. While I could now see the outgoing messages in the Event Log, my external device stopped behaving as expected. I realized that rather than being "transparent", the node's STDOUT is being completely re-routed to Portal. Is that correct?

When I tried to repeat this experiment, I also noticed that if I enable Intercept STDOUT in Portal, but then run startup() in my script - in which STDIO is cross connected with UART0 - I don't see the outgoing messages, but the button remains selected in Portal. (And the external device appears to work the way it should.)

Is there a way, perhaps in the script itself, to have two things cross connected AND transparent to Portal?

Also, what does it mean to be cross connected with transparent? For example, if I cross connect UART0 and TRANSPARENT, anything that comes from UART0 will get forwarded to Portal (or the chosen ucastSerial address), but nothing can come out of transparent, can it? So why use crossConnect?

[mgenti]

I realized that rather than being "transparent", the node's STDOUT is being completely re-routed to Portal. Is that correct?

Yes, when you click intercept STDOUT in Portal it issues the following commands on the node:

ucastSerial(PORTAL_ADDR)
uniConnect(DS_TRANSPARENT, DS_STDIO)



When I tried to repeat this experiment, I also noticed that if I enable Intercept STDOUT in Portal, but then run startup() in my script - in which STDIO is cross connected with UART0 - I don't see the outgoing messages, but the button remains selected in Portal. (And the external device appears to work the way it should.)


If you re-run your startup script and it changes the cross-connects than Portal will no longer receive those messages.


Is there a way, perhaps in the script itself, to have two things cross connected AND transparent to Portal?

No, you will only be able to have one crossconnect for transparent.


...nothing can come out of transparent, can it?

Yes, other nodes or Portal can send transparent mode packets to the node and have that data sent out the serial port, or whatever it is crossconnected too.