Development screen set from about a year ago

[washcomp]

This is a screen set that I made up about a year ago to test concepts of screen design in MACH3.  It used the premise that a "modality" function might be advantageous.  Each screen is called from the main screen (sort of the way that the Newfangled Wizard set and the Lathe screen work today), however the keyboard function keys (other than F1 reserved for HELP) should move you from screen to screen.

Yes, I know that some of the graphics are a bit disjointed (a few different software packages used for buttons [some even labled "DEMO"]), but the attempt was to see if I could reduce the required real estate and make the screens intuitive.  An attempt was made to have similar functions fall in the same positions on different screens.  The black background was to increase contract with the buttons.  The coolant configuration was to see if a small, but recognizable method made sense.

There is a lot going on in the "off the screen" area, so these are best viewed at 1152x864 (or to take them appart in Screen Designer).

Hopefully some of the design concepts will be useful to this new crop of screen designers (I felt very lonely back then).  I would also welcome constructive criticism (other than to point out the obvious fact that some of the graphics are a bit weird and out of place).

As I pointed out in past posts, there was no requirement to copy the way things had been done in the past.  and I figured I'd break with tradition with some of the concepts.  I'm curious what you guys think.

Regards,
Jeff

[ynneb]

Thanks for reposting this Jeff. I am embarressed that it was deleted off Yahoo without anyone telling you. So sorry.
There is an abundance of storage on this site, so I can promise your work will not be dissregarded.

I will download this again and refresh my memory to what it does, and looks like.
It may help if you posts a screen capture in here so as to interest others. ( JPG)

As I have said b4, we all have different styles, tallents, and understandings. Collectively we can learn from each others contributions. I welcome your addition. Thanks mate

[washcomp]

I'll try to take some screen shots tomorrow and post them. 

Regards,
Jeff

[ynneb]

Jeff, I like what you have done.
The only thing that I found dificult to understand was the navigation from page to page.
The navigation buttons seemed to move around to different places. I think with a common navigation panel on all pages, this could be a great screen. Also if the sizes of buttons were the same and aligned, it would be better too.
This is just my opinion, and has no authority.
I look forward to seeing some more updates done to it in the near future.
Keep up the good work.

[santiniuk]

Jeff,

Always good to see other peoples work. I like the concept of not having too much on one screen and some of the images like spindle rotation direction etc make it graphically more pleasing. The image buttons for modes is also a good touch.

I agree that the common navigation panel makes it a bit easier to work with.

Why not crank up screen4, blow away the cobwebs and bash away at it. Definately worth pursuing.

Cheers.

Shaun

[washcomp]

I've done screen shots of the screen set for the curious.  I've discovered that the best resolution to use the screen set at is 1152x864.  At 1024x768, it truncattes (at least on my desk PC) and at higher resolution you get to see "the man behind the curtain" stuff that I think Benny was looking at.  The screen was intended to eventually be "touch screen friendly" so many of the buttons tend to be square rather than elongated.  The "touch-off" graphics are a bit crude (no easy way to overlay bitmaps back then.  This set was designed to be optimized for milling, so I tried to include functions which were important in that context and removed some that I thought would be just clutter.  In my case, I can get away with removing many more buttons to the off-screen area because I built a rather ornate control panel which takes the place of on-screen controls.  Today, I would probably just use a touch screen and call it a day.

I can't figure out how to embed these bloody screen shots, so I've attached them instead (maybe someone can patch this up a bit?).

Regards,
Jeff

[washcomp]

More Screens shots

[washcomp]

Yet more screen shots.
Couldn't resist a picture of my control panel ( MPG pendant not shown).

Regards,
Jeff

[ynneb]

Jeff, I reccomend you change the size of these pictures to 600 x800
Ue the batch convert in Irfanview to do this.