Q: GladeVCP & AXIS Panels in Single Axis Tab

Hi, LinuxCNC folks,

I'm going to make major overhaul of AXIS interface, and have few questions as a newbie to AXIS customization.
Depending upon technical possibilities I'll consider what to do next.

1) Is it possible to embed several GladeVCP panels into single AXIS tab ?

2) How to change Gtk theme used by AXIS itself (not GladeVCP)?. For example, in GladeVCP example supplied with LinuxCNC discrepancy between styles of 2 panels (AXIS and GladeVCP) are clearly visible.

3) Are there python modules for displaying live preview, g-code run log and MDI manual entry from within GladeVCP?

4) Is it a good idea make AXIS panel completely empty, and then add GladeVCP based controls as single large panels spanning entire window area?

Thanks in advance for any suggestion(s).

first to answer your questions:

1- yes you could use a notebook widget to have many levels of panels with only one showing. The only thing it requires is you to put all the panels you want into one gladevcp glade file.

2- AXIS does not use GTK it uses tkinter for it's widgets. Changing the theme of AXIS is possible (at least the colors) but I am not sure how. It's much easier to change gladevcp's theme to better match AXIS -try redmond

3- yes gladevcp has those widgets: see here: linuxcnc.org/docs/2.7/html/gui/gladevcp.html

4- AXIS does not lend it's self to modifications. It does not use GTK for it's widgets. Gladevcp panels are added by using a technique of having AXIS agree to paint certain panels with gladevcp's GTK widgets. There are limits to what and where these agreements are - so far only tabs and right side panels can be included.

If you are wanting to build a completely different screen there are better choices:

-Gmoccapy is a fully functional / maintained screen that uses gladevcp widgets. you can relatively easily change any widgets/functions on the screen - way beyond gladevcp panels.
-Gscreen has a few example screens available (in fact Gmoccapy was a gscreen 'skin' originally) they are probably not complete finished / polished but do show examples of different screen ideas. They use gladevcp widgets
-there is a least one more developing screen on this forum -Hazzy which I believe use gladevcp but uses a background image as the basic layout.

building clean-slate screens does require a lot of investment of time - you need to know pyGTK, GLADE and python programming.

Chris M