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Plug-in Management

Support for each evaluation board — its views, capture pipeline, and analysis tools — ships as a plug-in that Evaluation Studio downloads on demand. Most of the time you don't manage plug-ins at all: connect a board and the application fetches what it needs. The Plug-in Manager is there for everything else — browsing what's available, updating, uninstalling, and working offline.

The automatic path: connect a board

When Evaluation Studio detects a connected board, it appears as a card under Available Hardware on the Home screen. Click Open — if the board's plug-ins aren't installed yet, they are downloaded and installed for you, dependencies included, before the board's views open.

Available Hardware section of the Home screen showing two connected boards, each with an Open button

The rest of this page covers the manual path: the Plug-in Manager, opened from Plug-Ins in the left rail.

Find and install a plug-in

Plug-in Manager on the Browse tab: four plug-ins listed with versions, verified marks, and Install buttons; Installed and Updates tabs at the top, the Updates tab showing a badge with the number 2

The Plug-in Manager. Browse lists what's available to install, Installed what you have, and Updates — with a count badge — what has a newer version.

  1. Click Plug-Ins in the left rail. The manager opens on the Browse tab.

  2. Type your part number or evaluation-board name into the search box. Search matches plug-in names, descriptions, and supported board IDs — so searching for the board finds the plug-in even when the names differ:

    Searching for AD4858 filters the Browse list down to the AD485x plug-in, whose supported boards include EVAL-AD4858FMCZ

  3. Click the row's ▸ chevron to check the description before committing:

    An expanded plug-in row showing its description and a Dependencies list naming Hardware.IIO

  4. Click Install. The row shows its progress, and any plug-ins yours depends on are fetched in the same operation:

    After installing AD485x, three rows read Installed successfully: AD485x itself plus its dependencies IIO Hardware and Block Diagram Viewer

    One click, three installs: AD485x plus the two plug-ins it depends on.

Tip

To install several plug-ins in one go, tick their checkboxes and use the Install button in the toolbar. A Stop button appears while the operation runs, in case you change your mind mid-download.

Note

Some plug-ins ship with a license agreement. When one does, an Accept/Decline dialog appears before the install proceeds — declining cancels that plug-in's install.

Keep plug-ins up to date

When an installed plug-in has a newer version in the repository, the Updates tab shows a count badge. Each row shows the jump you'd be making; update rows one at a time, or tick several and use the toolbar's Update button.

Updates tab listing two plug-ins, each showing its installed version, an arrow, and the newer version available

Uninstall a plug-in

On the Installed tab, click a row's Uninstall button. If other installed plug-ins depend on the one you're removing, Evaluation Studio warns you first — confirming removes the whole set, since the dependents can't work without it.

Dependent Plug-ins Found dialog: AD485x depends on IIO Hardware and will also be uninstalled; buttons are Cancel and Uninstall All

Warning

When nothing depends on the plug-in, clicking Uninstall acts immediately — there is no confirmation step.

Installed tab listing installed plug-ins with per-row Uninstall buttons; two rows carry a debug badge marking locally built plug-ins

The Installed tab. Rows with the bug icon are unpackaged debug plug-ins loaded from a developer folder — you'll only see those if you build plug-ins yourself.

Where plug-ins come from

Plug-ins are fetched from one or more repositories — package feeds hosted by ADI. The Repositories button lets you toggle which feeds the Browse tab draws from; the list refreshes when you apply.

Plug-in Repositories dialog with a checkbox list of feeds — here a single feed named evaluation-studio, enabled

Two related controls live elsewhere:

  • The Show Pre-Release toggle (top right of the manager) also offers versions that haven't had a stable release yet. Leave it off unless you're testing.
  • Adding a repository, changing the install folder, and loading debug plug-ins are configured in Settings → Plug-ins.

Working offline

The Import .evalzip and Export .evalzip toolbar buttons move plug-ins as a single file instead of over the network — export bundles the plug-ins you tick plus their dependencies, and import installs a bundle on a machine with no repository access. A dedicated page on offline installation is planned; until then, the buttons are self-explanatory for simple cases.

If something goes wrong

Symptom Likely cause What to do
Browse tab is empty No repository reachable, or all feeds disabled Check your network, then Repositories — at least one feed must be enabled. The refresh button next to the search box re-scans.
A plug-in shows Failed Download or installation error The application log (bottom panel) has the details. The status clears itself after a few seconds; try again.
Install button does nothing Another plug-in operation is still running Only one install/uninstall/update runs at a time — wait for it to finish or press Stop.