Gscreen - a GTK / Glade / Python based screen

Chris,

In trying to install industrial-gscreen on my machine I have come to notice that the MDI and Setup tabs should be combined and and named Manual. The command box should say MDI command. That would simply this gui even more and be eiser for the new user to understand. I had one of the guy wathcing me working on it and he was confused why i was jumping back and forth between screens.

tjamscad wrote:

How do I add pins if there not there?

Depends on what they are for.
If there is a button that fits the functionality then adding or changing a button to a HAL button gets you the pin.
Something more complicate requires python code added.
What do you need?

Chris M

tjamscad wrote:

Chris,

In trying to install industrial-gscreen on my machine I have come to notice that the MDI and Setup tabs should be combined and and named Manual. The command box should say MDI command. That would simply this gui even more and be eiser for the new user to understand. I had one of the guy wathcing me working on it and he was confused why i was jumping back and forth between screens.

Yes I have thought that linuxcnc really doesn't need 3 separate control modes - it's a carry over from days gone past.
There are some reasons they did it. While MDI commands are running most manual controls are not available, having them in separate pages
makes this easier to control.

The fact is linuxcnc forces the screen builder to lie to it all the time.
There is a lot of code in there to switch modes back and forth. For instance tool changes in manual,actually temporarily set linuxcnc in MDI mode, changes the tool then back to manual mode. same with zeroing the tool offset. etc

I will have to try it and see what changes I will need to make, so the user can't use manual controls while and MDI command is running.
Removing MDI mode screen, removing the embedded graphics, and utilizing the MPG more for controls are on my to try list.
I'm a little bogged down do to life and the fact a new release is coming, so i must start to stabilize more then add features...

Chris M
Chris M

I never got back to your Theme with larger scroll bars yet.
Did you try the 'portrait' screen ? I think it would need a Gscreen screen built for it in mind, Though i think it would work well for the keyboard.

Chris M

cmorley wrote:

I never got back to your Theme with larger scroll bars yet.
Did you try the 'portrait' screen ? I think it would need a Gscreen screen built for it in mind, Though i think it would work well for the keyboard.

Chris M

The theme and scroll bars worked well for me on everything I have run it on so far. I even switched the machine I was working on to it with touchy.

I tried the portrat mode thing but the systems I have set up (vitrual box) and my demo machine dont support it. I still think it would work really well to have it. I have been taking some measurements and it looks like a 19" or larger wide screen would do really nice with portrait mode.

cmorley wrote:

tjamscad wrote:

How do I add pins if there not there?

Depends on what they are for.
If there is a button that fits the functionality then adding or changing a button to a HAL button gets you the pin.
Something more complicate requires python code added.
What do you need?

Chris M

This was the orginal touchy.hal file that I just copied and renamed replacing touchy with gscreen in the file. I dont know why I thought it would be that easy. In a previous job life we did this type of thing all the time.

cmorley wrote:

tjamscad wrote:

Chris,

In trying to install industrial-gscreen on my machine I have come to notice that the MDI and Setup tabs should be combined and and named Manual. The command box should say MDI command. That would simply this gui even more and be eiser for the new user to understand. I had one of the guy wathcing me working on it and he was confused why i was jumping back and forth between screens.

Yes I have thought that linuxcnc really doesn't need 3 separate control modes - it's a carry over from days gone past.
There are some reasons they did it. While MDI commands are running most manual controls are not available, having them in separate pages
makes this easier to control.

The fact is linuxcnc forces the screen builder to lie to it all the time.
There is a lot of code in there to switch modes back and forth. For instance tool changes in manual,actually temporarily set linuxcnc in MDI mode, changes the tool then back to manual mode. same with zeroing the tool offset. etc

I will have to try it and see what changes I will need to make, so the user can't use manual controls while and MDI command is running.
Removing MDI mode screen, removing the embedded graphics, and utilizing the MPG more for controls are on my to try list.
I'm a little bogged down do to life and the fact a new release is coming, so i must start to stabilize more then add features...

Chris M
Chris M

So you have to fake it out? That kinda make for an unreliable start right? If your baseline is a lie then what is your output? Is there an option for current command in progress or something that you could add to your line? if current.command then manual input = false

Chris,

Like we have discussed before I will have very minimal controls on the control I will be using. Machine on, Machine Off, Emergency Stop, Cycle start, Feed hold, and MPG wheel. I will use the screen for selecting modes and increments but the wheel will be use to control actions.

Chris,

What did you say the structure is for gscreen?

I searched for it but couldn't find it.

I am not sure what you mean by structure.

Some of the pins for touchy, Gscreen doesn't have equivalents for.
You can set the MPG to jog with (its done out side of Gscreen) Gscreen can enable it and set the increments for it.

Eg
gscreen.jog-enable-x-out
Will Be true when in manual,with jogging button true and X axis button is true.
it works the same as touchy.jog.wheel.x

gscreen.jog-increment-out
Same idea as touchy.jog.wheel.increments other then the increments are selectable in the INI (if your using a jog wheel make sure they make sense)

gscreen.abort same as Touchy.abort
gscreen.cycle_start same idea as touchy cycle_start

gscreen.feedhold is different from touchy.singlestep gscreen has a separate button for single stepping.
We might want to change this behaviour a bit.

I would comment out all the Touchy stuff out and try to get each of these things working first.

example start:

net mpgencodercounts ppmc.0.encoder.03.count ilowpass.0.in gscreen.wheel-counts
net ilowpasscounts ilowpass.0.out axis.0.jog-counts axis.1.jog-counts axis.2.jog-counts
#
net gscreenjogincrements gscreen.jog.wheel.increment scale.0.in
net scaledincrements scale.0.out axis.0.jog-scale axis.1.jog-scale axis.2.jog-scale
#
net X-jog-enable gscreen.jog.wheel.x axis.0.jog-enable
net Y-jog-enable gscreen.jog.wheel.y axis.1.jog-enable
net Z-jog-enable gscreen.jog.wheel.z axis.2.jog-enable
#

gscreen doesn't have wheel_counts just remove it.
change gscreen.jog.wheel.increment to gscreen.jog-increment-out
and change the INI file's increments to small values.
change gscreen.jog.wheel.N to gscreen.jog-enable-N-out (N being x,y,and z)

Commet everything else out and test. The jogging should work.

Chris M