Axis Tabs

Dewey Garret has a cool ngcgui that can now be embedded into the tabs of Axis.





README has instructions and download info:
www.panix.com/~dgarrett/ngcgui/README

John

This is from Dewey:

You can do this and much more already, i tried to show how in the
youtube video but there are many features so it takes some testing
to learn how to use it.

Basically (referring to ngcgui embedded in axis pages):

On any page you can create any number of features
The first is created by the button "Create Feature"
After one is created, the button changes name to "Create Next"
There is a counter next to the "Restart" button, use the "Restart"
button to start over for that page.

The color of the tab for a page changes when the first feature
is entered. The color changes again when the number
of features is greater than 1.

You can finalize all the features for that page, and they will
be sent to axis.

If you move to another page _before_ finalizing, you can make
any number of features on other pages.

After you have made any number of features on any number of pages,
push an active "Finalize" Button and a dialog will pop up to allow you
to finalize all pages in the left-to-right order of the tabs.

You can say "No, just this page"
or say "Yes" for all the pages
If the pages are not in the left-to-right order you want,
say "Cancel"
and move the pages around to the order you want with the
move--> and <--move buttons and then push "Finalize"
on any page where it is enabled.

You never need to add M2, ngcgui does it for you.

You can also change "Finalize" to "MakeFile" with Control-A.
This allows you to make a file (with features created from all pages)
and give it a name and location you want. You can then start over
or push "SendFileToAxis"

There are lots of features and most are documented in the text
at the top of the ngcgui.tcl file but I probably forget things
when I change them.

Here are a few features I find useful:

1) Control-k pops up key bindings (I can remember Control-k but not
all of them)

2) A useful key binding if you are writing subroutines is Control-U.
Control-U opens the editor specified by $VISUAL (this is
usually in your .profile or .bashrc file or similar)

You use this on pages which have no image displayed because
a) there is no image or b) you specify a custom page with
[DISPLAY]NGCUI_SUBFILE=""

The editor is opened on the current subfile, if you edit and
save your changes you should see the color of the Subfile file
name change and the Reread button activated. You can push
the Reread button to reread the file (and the color will revert)

3) Control-e opens your editor on the last created ngc file (for
the current page) that was sent to axis. You can edit this
file, save it, and use the axis "Reopen" button to reread
it. This can be useful in finding errors but of course you
have to edit your initial ngc file later.

> What would be really cool is to have an "Add" button to connect several
> different subs together then hit the "Final" button to finish.

4) on Custom pages (and in the standalone app with no image or --noiframe,
you can create multiple features for a subfile, then open a new
subfile (with the "Subfile" button) and make more features and so
on choosing "Finalize" when you are done.

5) The image files are intended to help beginners but I didn't
spend much time on them. I just used gimp to grab a screen
and made a few edits. To use an image file, its best to
size it in a 4:3 ratio like 320:240.

Some more info from the developer

Hi John,

Another feature you might like:

When an ngcgui page is embedded in an axis tab, you can type the
name of an axis (x y z a b c) in _any_ entry box under "Positional
Parameters" and the current value for that axis will be entered
into the box.

Be careful -- because it works on _any_ entry box whether it
makes sense or not.

I've found this pretty convenient for transferring current
machine positions to subroutine parameters -- e.g., you can
jog to a certain point and use x and y to set entries for
a feature corner or feature center, etc.

You can clear all entries with Control-c and
set all entries to their defaults with Control-d

I think it would be neat if people would share subroutines --
all ngcgui does is establish some conventions that make it easy
to offer a "general purpose" gui. Some of the conventions --
like using supplying defaults and using named parameters help
make them more readable too.


dewey