A Widescreen Blender-Style Interface

I like the philosophy of touchy as well

andypugh wrote:

For a big and dangerous machine you might want to look at the Touchy interface. It isn't as slick as Gmoccapy or "Brendy"

Ahh, thanks to Andy, this delightful interface has a name! "Brendy" it has to be! (unless touchy "Brendy" becomes "Trendy"

andypugh wrote:

For a big and dangerous machine you might want to look at the Touchy interface.

Thanks, I'll definitely give it a look for the VMC after I've tweaked and fixed a number of things. I don't want to introduce another variable at this point.

Just to nip this in the bud: I am against naming things with names which are difficult to document.
I should think that if I am successful, I will become just another faceless person who helped LinuxCNC.

Perhaps someday, it could be called "LinuxCNC Wide Rounded-Dark 1.0," but there is a lot of work to be done first.

Hi Tommylight,

The design is still young enough that I am still worried about dead-ends, design-wise, given that it's only been a few weeks. I guess I should make a to-do list.

To do list:
* Draw up an on-screen keyboard, and make sure it works well with the other panels and sections. (In progress)

* Make sure interface works with space allotted, with the bars and Linux-CNC pull-down menubar. As installed, the XFCE dock wastes a lot of space, and I have met with resistance about changing it, though I strongly feel that it will help other interfaces as well. I will have to see if my 16x9 monitor has an analog input, so it can be moved out in the garage to see how much the XFCE top bar takes up, as well as the LinuxCNC native controls, which I have just estimated. In the end, I just state that the dock's icons should be moved to the top Launch bar, and the wasteful dock eliminated to use the interface. I know a lot of Mac people who don't like the OSX dock either. Microsoft is so stupid for continually working to eliminate it's launch-bar and start button, which are arguably the best part of Windows.

* Come up with a readout and axis controls panel which will make lathe-people happy.

* Get more feedback.

I am sorry that this is taking so long, but with other people working on this, I want them to use their time efficiently.

[Aside from this I am trying to finish my CNC mill and large 3d printer before I lose my place to live.]

* A rough on-screen keyboard mockup.

I would rather not ever cover up the machine EStop and power controls, but the user would probably have to be prevented from turning anything on when a keyboard or editing window is up.

This is the stuff that times time: to work out if things will work out.

Arrow keys should be fitted in there somewhere.
Edit: probably should have a spacebar, too : )