Device is a feature that may be useful when you have an application replicated many times at the device level, or if you have programmed offline using the New device feature.
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In the first case (replicated device application), you could discover and add one typical device, and complete further engineering under it (learning and adding proxy points, point extensions, creating other control logic, adding Px views, including all self-contained links and bindings).
Then, you could duplicate that typical device component (choosing Duplicate in its right-click menu) for as many identical devices as exist. The Match feature now allows you to match each duplicated device component to a unique discovered device, saving engineering time. This repopulates the necessary properties of the duplicated device object with the correct values from the discovered device.
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In the second case (offline programming) where a connection to the actual device network is unavailable, you can manually add New devices and begin station engineering of a driver network. Typically, most component creations under a driver network are possible (including all levels) using the New feature in the various “manager” views (Device Manager, Point Manager, other device extension managers). Or, you can add saved applications (from the device level on down) and edit as necessary. Then, when online with the driver network later, you could use Match to “sync” to existing components (device-level, proxy points, and so forth).
The Match button in the Device Manager becomes available when in Learn Mode, and you have:
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Selected one device candidate in the top (Discovered) pane.
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Selected one existing device component in the bottom (Database) pane.
In this case, the toolbar also has an available Match tool, and the Manager menu has a Match command.
When you click Match, the Match dialog appears, as shown in Figure 27.
Match is strictly a “one-to-one” function for “discovered-to-database”—note that it is unavailable any time you have multiple items selected either in either the top or bottom pane.
The Match dialog is nearly identical to the single-device Edit dialog, and typically provides the “discovered” device address values. Often, most properties in the Match dialog already have acceptable device address values required for operation (otherwise, communications to the discovered device would not have occurred). You can always Edit the device component after you click OK and add it to your station.