A Widescreen Blender-Style Interface

I am still working on the torch controls, but I don't know which ones need to be on the main screen.
With no feedback as to their priority, this is the mess I've made of them.

I was hoping that I would get them close enough so a Torch Person could tell me what I am doing wrong.
Until then, this is what there is : )

Note: The torch controls on the lower right are swapped for milling controls, where applicable.
Also note: Minor redesign of the Estop and Power buttons. They aren't going any smaller.

* Changed E-Stop button shape to square. I was worried that the user might mistake the onscreen Estop for a physical one. The screen button is estop'ie enough, but not too much.
* Reworked Home/Touch controls. I am back to liking them.
* Minor change on View controls.
* Totally done with this for tonight, this time, really, I think.

Do you think a lower right panel could be made for a lathe?
What should I copy--err draw inspiration from?
What do you want on there?

Many of the controls are common between a lathe and mill, but the nice tool selection menu should be made in the "Tool" tab.

The X,Y, Z should work for both.

I've made the A and B controls and readouts smaller, though I've added a C. For a lathe, this area can be used for "Diameter" and "Length", and perhaps something else, perhaps something avant-garde such as "Tool Distance to Chuck."

Other than the Estop and Power buttons, the lower right panel can be whatever else a lathe needs, but the remaining controls are closer to a mill than a torch : )

My two cents.

Most set points are rarely changed during a given job so for me having a separate tab for the set points is ok. One thing not mentioned by tommylight is tracking of consumable use. It is nice to have a pierce counter and a total distance cut display so you can track consumable life. Accumulating timers for cut time, rapid (traverse) time and probing time are also useful for job costing analysis. Again this can all be on a separate tab.

So for the main screen I vote for arc voltage set point, arc voltage display. All the indicator LEDs that tommylight mentioned plus height hold active, torch enabled, break away mount status (torch crash). Controls for torch enable, thc height servo enable, torch velocity hold enable, kerf crossing enable.

You can have a look at my crude Gmoccapy screens posted in other threads.

John

Here are my crude screens. They are all from various points in the development of my control.



John

Thank you all for your input.

I think that I still want a group of controls on the lower right to control several things about whatever machine.
I think the Menu Bar needs a "Settings" tab, number 2 below.

So, there would be a 3 tier way of doing things.
1.) Lower-right = Things that need adjusting during use.
2.) Settings Page
3.) On LinuxCNC standard tool-bar, the same HAL-related stuff that we normally see.

I will do some more work on the torch-panel.

BTW, Gmoccapy has a lot of good ideas going for it. It's one of the interfaces I am drawing ideas from.
For instance, the incremental controls in my interface mock-up, were based on Gmoccapy, but just a little more compact because there are 2 rows of legends on the inside of the indicator portion.

Axis is minimal and it fits a lot of controls.

I am also drawing inspiration from Pietvr's interface, and of course: Blender and Mint/Cinnamon.

~

[Unfortunately, I have some tedious work to do on the interface. I am drawing the interface in Inkscape, which is open and pretty good--except for the size input boxes.

Anyway, when I started the interface project I just wanted it 16 x 9 in aspect ratio; I was more worried about button sizes than anything else. Well, now that things are coming along, it occurred to me, that the controls and perimeters should all be sized along powers of two, such as 128, 64, 32, or some kind of combination, such as 112, and 160, and so I have to think about absolute pixel sizes. Though it's insane to think of vector anything in integer pixel sizes, yet that's where I am....

Oddly, with the interface being 16x9, Inkscape has settings for simulate absolute pixel sizes, and in this case I've chosen 1920x1080, yet someday, icons could be exported from the same file for 3840 x 2160 4K.

So, stuff should be resized. I've been changing most of the controls--every few days, anyway, it's that everything will need some adjusting before progressing.]