Gscreen - a GTK / Glade / Python based screen

cmorley wrote:

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

Alarm history, yes this can be very long sometimes. From a maientance point it is so nice when an operator is complaining about an issue and can go to the alarm history and see what has been going on. Most machines reset the history at machine power down, and some can save the history out to a text file.

Is it possible when selecting the debug tab that it bring up a password dialog box. That would be just the thing.

The SET-up, MDI, and Run are all in a single tabthat contains all three tabs. Can they be seperated to all three single tabs?

My attempt to add separate tabs has failed, so for now seems buttons is what you get.

Where would you like the show-debug-tab button and what to call it?

I'll try building an alarm history page.

An offsets page was talked about too...

Always more to do

Chris M

cmorley wrote:

My attempt to add separate tabs has failed, so for now seems buttons is what you get.

Where would you like the show-debug-tab button and what to call it?

I'll try building an alarm history page.

An offsets page was talked about too...

Always more to do

Chris M

Debug can be where it is and could be called "SYSTEM" and then the Maintence tab could be renamed back to debug.
Alarm history page, great
I think an offsets page embeded just like your tool editor page would be great also.

Hello Chris,

I am new with gscreen. I just pulled the newest version and tried it out.

First of all, I would say thanks for your work, but...

I am using it "run on place" on an Athlon 2000 (1300 MHz) with 1 GB Ram and SIS grafiks Card, so this isn't a new machine, but with gscreen it is getting an old lady, while it is running quiet well with axis. So I asume, that using an modern Computer will help. What specifications do you recommend?

When I start gscreen, an switch the machine on, all windows, or should I say elements makes a jump to the right.
The way to use it with custom gui is not easy to understand, I had to test a litttle arount to get used to it.
But I cound't find out how to come back to the main screen, after switching to the preference panel while there was running spiral.ngc.

I was working on an own screen, with is located also on mah's page, it is called moccapy, and based on the design of the german mocca surface.

I hope you don't mind, if I try to switch the design to an custom gui for gscreen, because I thing that is less work than finnishing my project, even, because I am just new with python.

I will test a litle more an give more feedback, but first I have to find a little more powerfull PC.

regards from Norbert

P.S. Sorry for my english, it is easier in german for me

you should see a menu button in the bottom right corner this should move you around the screens , gscreen was initialy targeted for touch screens .

I would say the initial jump of the graphics is probably because of your setup and slow machine , 2gb of memory will help along with probably a better graphics card .
would be helpful .

I use it day to day on machines without any major problems , i'd say overall for gscreen your just on the marginal edge any machine 1.8Mhz with 2gb memory should be more than enough

I test sometimes with a 1Ghz machine with onboard graphics - it is sluggish but usable.
but I develop on a 2.27 Ghz laptop with I5 Quad core and 2.5 Gigs on memory (not controlling a machine)
Gscreen will always be a bit of a resource hog. price we pay for flexibility and ease of development.

There are a few things to try:
Your base thread or servo thread can be adjusted to give linux more time to update graphics.
Not sure what kind of machine you are running or whether your using hardware cards to step/servo with.

I have the update rate set a 50 milli seconds I could change it to 100 I think this is what AXIS uses.

A add on graphics card could help if using onboard graphics

The jump to the right is noticeable on my slow machine and not on the fast machine.

I assume your trying the default screen:
switching back to the main screen can be done by the bottom right button ( it toggles between manual, MDI and Auto) or touch the 'main level' tab.
You must be out of Estop and machine on for the bottom right button to be available.

The custom screen options are really very new so are not documented that well.
Aside from the sample configs there is a wiki page:
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Gscreen

Of course I am still actively developing Gscreen so things can change and the wiki can get out of date.

Relatively easy custom screen development is one of the goals of Gscreen so yes please feel free to use it to build your screen.
If you need some changes to Gscreen to help let me know and we can talk about it though my primary goal is to get Gscreen finished.
The first goal for you is to build the basic screen in GLADE and have Gscreen display it without any of the controls working.
feel free to post your glade file or message me privately.

Chris M

Hallo Chris,

I just found an AMD64-4800+ with 2 GB RAM an an GeForce 9600 GT in the basement. There I found also an HP with Intel Core 2 Duo and 2 GB Ram with on board graphics card. I think both should fit the requirements.

I use several machines just for hobby use:

A lathe with 125 x 660 without tool change or spindle control, witch is working with 1,6 Nm steppers controlled by the parallel port.

A mill with 350 x 300 x 300 (massive steel construction in C Form), controlled by 2 parallel ports with 3 Nm steppers, spindle control by PWM.

A mill with 1460 x 450 x 350 with a 24 places tool changer with 2 kW DC servos and an 15 kW spindle all controlled through MESA Cards (mostly 0-10 V), operated by an MINI ITX Board with an 1,6 GHz Dual Core and 4 GB Ram an 32 GB SSD. Thanks to the help of mah the tool changer works fine without changing the code, because T?; M6 and M61 are remapped

A mill with 220 x 150 x 200 with a 9 places turrent tool changer with 1.5 kW DC servos and an 2 kW spindle all controlled through MESA Cards (mostly 0-10 V), operated by an MINI ITX Board with an 1,6 GHz Dual Core and 4 GB Ram an 32 GB SSD. (Sorry, but this one isn't finished jet.

My other machines are just convectional.

Back to gscreen:

I have been reading this tutorial.
The documentation you mentioned is , as you already told, not very detailed. I will try to understand the custom gui example files.

I will try to get some screenshots from my GUI, but I cant get it running with the actual master, I will have to check this first.

Regards Norbert

Here are some screenshots from my actual work

You can select the modes directly.
The button list on the bottom will change according to the mode.
In MDI mode you can select scripts

You will find a frame named Meldungen, where on the right you get the EMC reports and errors and on the left side it is a small debug window, with can be enlarged by double clicking it, then it fits the gremlin frame.

Most changes of the design are made by notebooks, chnging the page, so nothing is hopping around.

and some more stuff.

I like ICONS, but changing the button to text is easy.

So what are your opinions?

Regards Norbert