move pyvcp buttons and displays to gmoccapy

Hi there! I am still very new to customising the LinuxCNC UI so I hope this question is not already covered by the documentation. Since I have installed a touch screen recently I am evaluating the more touch friendly GUIs for LinuxCNC. gmoccapy or probe_basic seemed like a good choice to me. I would like to move the custom panels created with pyvcp for the axis UI to gmoccapy (or probe_basic respectively). The custom panel covers some custom outputs, Z-touch off and spindle revolution and load. I got the impression that not only gladevcp but also pyvcp could be included in gmoccapy. But I could not find anything about the syntax in the documentation. So if someone could give me a hint I would really appreciate that.

It is possible that gmoccapy only supports user tabs and not side-mounted panels. The docs don't say that (that I saw) but seem to suggest it.

You can always have the pyvcp panel free-floating and arrange things on screen to your liking (not sure how to keep it that way, though)

a plain "loadusr -Wn pyvcp ........(ie, the filename etc)" in the HAL file will open your panel.

Have you considered building exactly what you want based on Gscreen?

a plain "loadusr -Wn pyvcp ........(ie, the filename etc)" in the HAL file will open your panel.

or But that also gives you a free-floating panel. I don't know either if embedded pyvcp's are supported in gmoccapy.

But you can also consider using a modified AXIS version like presented here: forum.linuxcnc.org/21-axis/40659-axis-2-...f-old-friend?start=0 if you have put a lot of work in your PYVCPs. Otherwise maybe it's worth re-doing them to Glade or Qt. QtVCPs are supported in gmoccapy (see e.g. here linuxcnc.org/docs/2.9/html/gui/qtvcp-vcp...vcp:panels:cam-align )

 

Thank you all for sharing knowledge and ideas! I will evaluate the suggestions and post here what I could figure out.

Some more noob questions straight away:

• regarding the suggestion to create my own glade buttons: in the it says I shall set up the LinuxCNC shell environment with
   
  Code:

  . <linuxcncdir>/scripts/rip-environment
  Unfortunately I do not really know what to do with this. I can't find a file called rip-environment nor could I say for shure what is meant by <linuxcncdir>. I figured the linuxcnc command is in /usr/bin but there is no scripts folder there and also not in the ~/linuxcnc folder. I am using the iso install of the Linucnc 2.8 stable release.
• I saw that there are multiple documentations sites. If I call  linuxcnc.org/docs/ the <base_URL> , then there is <base_URL>/docs/html/... and <base_URL>/docs/2.6/html/ and <base_URL>/docs/2.8/html/ and so on. I would expect that the specified version numbers have the means of keeping the documentation alive for older releases while the link without any version number always refers to the current stable relase. Is this assumption correct? I found that some examples or explanations do not show anymore in the newer versions of the documentation - so do I have to assume they do not work anymore or has the documentation just been shortened to create a better overview?
• I think with my very little knowledge about linuxcnc I could improve the documentation with some hints or explanations that might seem too obvious to experience users or developers. Is there a way or channel of making suggestions to documentation changes like a git or an issue tracking system?

to 1:
<linuxcncdir> is meant to be the source code repository, you can find here: github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc
But you can install glade-gtk2 and try to set up the catalog like I described here: forum.linuxcnc.org/gmoccapy/45856-spindl...capy?start=10#258756

to 2.

I would expect that the specified version numbers have the means of keeping the documentation alive for older releases while the link without any version number always refers to the current stable relase. Is this assumption correct?

Yes. Also linuxcnc.org/docs/stable/ = linuxcnc.org/docs/2.8/ = linuxcnc.org/docs/ (until the next release at least)

I found that some examples or explanations do not show anymore in the newer versions of the documentation - so do I have to assume they do not work anymore or has the documentation just been shortened to create a better overview?

Do you have a concrete example? Normally they are only removed if not supported/working any more. They also might have moved to another section.

to 3: Yes, just create a Pull Request on github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc

short feedback from today's progress (only had 45 min unfortunately):
EMBED_TAB_COMMAND = pyvcp filename.xml works, but only if
EMBED_TAB_NAME and EMBED_TAB_LOCATION are also defined. The latter is a bit confusing in my opionion sind the pyvcp elements are opened in a seperate windows and not in the location specified. Nevertheless - this seems like a working solution (in simulation for now) and I am very happy about the helpful comments so far and looking forward to dive deeper into the other options.

piflixe wrote:

EMBED_TAB_COMMAND = pyvcp filename.xml works, but only if
EMBED_TAB_NAME and EMBED_TAB_LOCATION are also defined.

Sorry I implied this.


If your screen is big enough for displaying the VCPs beside the GUI, you can also set the size and position of the PYVCP: linuxcnc.org/docs/html/man/man1/pyvcp.1.html