Gscreen - a GTK / Glade / Python based screen

Gscreen is available oly in the development branch 'master'.
You can get that either from buildbot or by compiling yourself.

I'm so happy people find this exciting and useable!

Chris M

I made the tool table adjust it's columns to how many axis are available
also there is an 'index tool' button in the set up mode that is available after homing.
It pops a calculator dialog for tool number entry - I should probably make this just a number entry widget.
I sets the tool offset to the tool number ( eg T2 G43 H2 ) which may not be the best thing especially if using a lathe...

Chris M

I was thinking about the blank buttons in MDI mode and was wondering if having a button that moved back to absolute zero or the current origin etc would be useful?
Touchy has macros but I'm not really sure what they do...

Chris M

tjamscad wrote:

A few picky things.

11. can the debug tab be hidden unless for normal operators duing normal use. Like turned off with permissions or something.
.

One way this could be done is if you have a spare physical input with a switch on it (you could even have a keyed switch off an old computer)
then have Gscreen hide or show the debug tab based on the switch.
Would have to check that none of the preferences are required on a day to day basis...

Chris M

cmorley wrote:

tjamscad wrote:

A few picky things.

11. can the debug tab be hidden unless for normal operators duing normal use. Like turned off with permissions or something.
.

One way this could be done is if you have a spare physical input with a switch on it (you could even have a keyed switch off an old computer)
then have Gscreen hide or show the debug tab based on the switch.
Would have to check that none of the preferences are required on a day to day basis...

Chris M

I could add a key switch to the terminal. Is that the only way?

perhaps a key combination on start up may be possible

Chris,

You have done excelent work on this. This is where I am with my comments. I plan on show this to the shop when these are complete.

Can the debug tab be hidden unless for normal operators duing normal use? Like turned off with permissions or something.

Debug should have alarm history.

Setup, MDI and Run need there own tabs.

Eastop and Ignore Limits should be black when not on.

The left side bar needs to be wider. In setup mode the status block you cant see the text for jog. This may need to be resized using the gcode status screen.

tjamscad

Hiding the debug tab can by done many ways. eg
1) require you to change some text in the files to show it - down side is you would need to close and restart the screen. so slow to change
2) use an HAL input pin to control it via a physical switch - down side is it uses up an IO pin, upside can be done anytime and quickly
2) use a special key combination while clicking a button or tab - trouble is this is completely un-discoverable and unintuitive so I can't really publish this as a sample config though could show you how to add it to your personal screen.
3) find some place for a button that brings up a password dialog any idea where and what to call it?

The alarm history could get very long - do the controls get turned off regularly ? oh wait do you want it saved when turned off?
I suppose we could limit it to say the last 50 entries. A time stamp would be useful too.

Are you saying the buttons on the tabs are not sufficient if made a little larger?
There is a technical reason why I don't just add the tabs - though I may have thought of a work around....

estop - sorry I thought I turned them black but I see I turned them dark - not quite the same...

Left bar - yes I did some work on that and didn't figure out what was causing it - will work on it some more.

I recently noticed that linuxcnc has two reference types of 'touch-off' (origin offset in Gscreen speak):
touchoff to fixture or touch off to workpiece
Can't say what the difference really is but I assume i need a button to select - where should that button be and where should the indicator be?

I will be very proud if the machinists prefer this screen - thank you and everyone else for the critiques.
Chris M

Thanks John.

So to summarise touch off :
to fixture - offsets just the current tool
to workpiece - offsets all the tools

so really:
to fixture - is tool setting
and to workpiece - is origin setting

Is this accurate?

Chris M