Messages

461

Works in progress / Wanted: Graphic Designer assistance for Mach3 V4 screen set

« on: March 12, 2010, 02:05:04 PM »

Hi, this is an open call for some Graphic Design skill assistance.

We have a window of opportunity for someone from the Mach3 community to gain fame (well, a little bit anyhow) and fortune (uh, none actually, we’re seeking a volunteer)…   :-)

Project background:
I’ve been working with Artsoft to develop a new Mill/Router screen set for the V4 release of Mach3.  The screen set has been prototyped using Mach3 V3, is 99% functional, and the prototype (built on v3) is currently being alpha tested.  We anticipate starting the conversion of the screen set VB code from V3 VB calls to V4 VB calls soon.

As part of the project, I did graphics for the new screen set.  While (at least IMHO) they are a significant improvement over the 1024.set, some aspects are not quite of the professional quality level that I would really like to see in the new screen set.  I’m the first to admit that I am not a professional graphic designer.  I simply did what I could with the editing tool we choose to use for the project.  Now that the screen set functionality is pretty stable, this would be a good time to do some graphics tweaking. 

The graphics update task:
The task would be to take 12-20 graphic building blocks and “visually upgrade and clean up” the basic graphics components. 

The current screen set graphics are modular and are composed of groups of objects built from a relatively small number of base building blocks (Buttons in about 6 colors, LED images in 3-4 colors, background panels and a background image).  The base objects have then been used in different sizes within the screen set. 

We are not talking about designing a whole screen set or even a whole screen page (we are past the point in the project where that level of alteration is practical).  What I would like to do now, is to achieve some incremental visual improvement by updating the base button/LED components.  The current expectation is that this effort to “professionalize” the graphic components would not be large since it should only require the tweaking of around a dozen graphic objects.

What is desired is someone that I can talk to and say “I would like the buttons to be a bit more “X”, a bit less “Y” in appearance and we need it in 6 colors.  While I “know” what the desired visual result of the update is, and have some visual examples similar to the desired result, I don’t personally have the level of graphic design skills needed to translate the desire into “oh, to do that, you to do this, this, and that to the image – how’s this look?”

Project constraints:

Fame:
The reality is that this is not a project for which there are any funds available to pay for professional graphic design work.  The screen set and associated graphic sources will be made available to all and given away with the V4 release.  So, there is no fortune to be had here… but fame?  … Ah, that is another story!  I can offer credit in the screen set credits page for the graphic design work.  This could be your chance for “15 minutes of Mach3 Fame”!

Graphic Tool:
The project graphics are in RealDraw Pro source format.  An ideal volunteer would already be familiar with RD.  However, this is by no means a prerequisite as RD is pretty easy to learn (especially if you already know something like Photoshop).  RD has the ability to import Photoshop PSD files. 

Time Frame:
Ideally I would like to see this update fit into the time between now and the end of the month.  That would keep it from being an impact on the overall project schedule.  I think this is reasonable given (I’m guesstimating) that for someone with a graphic design background, the actual graphic work involved is in the ½-1 day range for the actual graphic work, + whatever time is needed to learn how to mess with RD + some time talking to get us on the same page re the goals for tweaking the graphics.


If you have good/professional graphic design skills and would be interested in contributing to the v4 screen set project, I’d really like to hear from you.

David Bagby

462

General Mach Discussion / Wanted: Graphic Designer assistance for Mach3 V4 screen set.

« on: March 12, 2010, 02:03:37 PM »

Hi, this is an open call for some Graphic Design skill assistance.

We have a window of opportunity for someone from the Mach3 community to gain fame (well, a little bit anyhow) and fortune (uh, none actually, we’re seeking a volunteer)…   :-)

Project background:
I’ve been working with Artsoft to develop a new Mill/Router screen set for the V4 release of Mach3.  The screen set has been prototyped using Mach3 V3, is 99% functional, and the prototype (built on v3) is currently being alpha tested.  We anticipate starting the conversion of the screen set VB code from V3 VB calls to V4 VB calls soon.

As part of the project, I did graphics for the new screen set.  While (at least IMHO) they are a significant improvement over the 1024.set, some aspects are not quite of the professional quality level that I would really like to see in the new screen set.  I’m the first to admit that I am not a professional graphic designer.  I simply did what I could with the editing tool we choose to use for the project.  Now that the screen set functionality is pretty stable, this would be a good time to do some graphics tweaking. 

The graphics update task:
The task would be to take 12-20 graphic building blocks and “visually upgrade and clean up” the basic graphics components. 

The current screen set graphics are modular and are composed of groups of objects built from a relatively small number of base building blocks (Buttons in about 6 colors, LED images in 3-4 colors, background panels and a background image).  The base objects have then been used in different sizes within the screen set. 

We are not talking about designing a whole screen set or even a whole screen page (we are past the point in the project where that level of alteration is practical).  What I would like to do now, is to achieve some incremental visual improvement by updating the base button/LED components.  The current expectation is that this effort to “professionalize” the graphic components would not be large since it should only require the tweaking of around a dozen graphic objects.

What is desired is someone that I can talk to and say “I would like the buttons to be a bit more “X”, a bit less “Y” in appearance and we need it in 6 colors.  While I “know” what the desired visual result of the update is, and have some visual examples similar to the desired result, I don’t personally have the level of graphic design skills needed to translate the desire into “oh, to do that, you to do this, this, and that to the image – how’s this look?”

Project constraints:

Fame:
The reality is that this is not a project for which there are any funds available to pay for professional graphic design work.  The screen set and associated graphic sources will be made available to all and given away with the V4 release.  So, there is no fortune to be had here… but fame?  … Ah, that is another story!  I can offer credit in the screen set credits page for the graphic design work.  This could be your chance for “15 minutes of Mach3 Fame”!

Graphic Tool:
The project graphics are in RealDraw Pro source format.  An ideal volunteer would already be familiar with RD.  However, this is by no means a prerequisite as RD is pretty easy to learn (especially if you already know something like Photoshop).  RD has the ability to import Photoshop PSD files. 

Time Frame:
Ideally I would like to see this update fit into the time between now and the end of the month.  That would keep it from being an impact on the overall project schedule.  I think this is reasonable given (I’m guesstimating) that for someone with a graphic design background, the actual graphic work involved is in the ½-1 day range for the actual graphic work, + whatever time is needed to learn how to mess with RD + some time talking to get us on the same page re the goals for tweaking the graphics.


If you have good/professional graphic design skills and would be interested in contributing to the v4 screen set project, I’d really like to hear from you.

David Bagby

463

Screen designer tips and tutorials / Re: LEDs with transparent off

« on: March 12, 2010, 04:28:11 AM »

Hi Ron,
You are right that drawing a transparent led is really drawing transparent pixels - which is not the same as "undrawing" the opposite led state pixels.

I had not tried to make a tri state led - sounded interesting so I figured I'd try it.
I managed to make two overlaid leds look as a tri state led.
I've shipped the sample screen set to you via direct email.

BTW, for the jog mode case you mentioned, I believe that is really a 4 state conditions that you will want to show visually. The 4 states are:
1) cont jog
2) step jog
3) MPG jog
4) no jogging - all three mach leds (14, 15 and 57) will be off if jogging is disabled, hence the multi state led will probably want to have an "off" visual state too.

Dave

464

Works in progress / George are you still around?

« on: March 11, 2010, 08:37:33 PM »

George,
I sent you a PM.

Does anyone else know how to contact George?
I'd like to talk to him about a graphic design effort - the email address in his profile bounces as an invalid mail box.

Dave

465

FAQs / Re: smithy 1240 mill spindle constant run ccw

« on: March 05, 2010, 06:17:01 PM »

PM sent to you
Dave

466

VB and the development of wizards / get name of profile in VB?

« on: March 05, 2010, 04:51:32 PM »

Does anyone know how to get the name of the loaded profile from a VB script?

I know that there is a magic smart label that will display the profile name on a screen, but I don't see a way to either get the contents of that smart label into a string in VB, or a specific call to get the profile name.

Dave

467

VB and the development of wizards / Re: Latest Mach Ver .038 tool change

« on: March 04, 2010, 06:36:49 PM »

Hi,

I believe that you have found a Mach v3 bug - at least it sounds to me like the same bug I reported a while back.

I don't know what version of mach this bug appeared in - what version were you running before you installed 0.38?
I'd like to narrow down the versions with this bug. I know it happens on 036 also.
I reported this bug to Brian on 1-17-2010.

Here is what I deduced and the work around that I used.

     The problem is that DoOEMButton(1000) is NOT the same as a button that is mach function 0 (cycle start).

     Button function 0 sets the flag that tells mach to continue after a tool change.

     DoOEMButton(1000) does not set the flag and Mach requires an actual function-0 button press after M6end returns before it will continue the gcode.
   

     During a tool change, mach tells the user to "press cycle start after tool change" -
      It appears that mach is being very literal with this message....
       
      If the user presses a button that has mach Function 0 assigned to the button, an internal mach flag is set that tells mach to continue running the Gcode file when M6End returns to mach.
       
      However,  if a button is pressed that does DoOEMButton(1000) - which is the number for the cycle start function, the internal flag is NOT set.
       
      The result is that when M6end returns to mach, mach does NOT continue running the gcode - until a function-0 button is pressed by the user.
       
WORK AROUND: change the code to DoButton(0) instead of DoOEMButton(1000) - now it works correctly.
The down side of the work around is that the DoButton calls are deprecated and will go away in mach v4 - but this gets things running again until the bug is fixed.

Dave

468

VB and the development of wizards / Re: For Loops inside of If Statement Help Please

« on: February 13, 2010, 11:34:33 PM »

Before I posted, the preview view of my post was showing that some lines were being split in two as being to long.
I thought the forum would split the lines - which would have caused a compile error if you cut and pasted and got extra line breaks.
But apparently the preview was pulling my leg - it didn't split them after all.

Re Option Explicit - I consider that a good idea for all VB code.
It makes the compiler not declare things on the fly to match what you typed (or mis-typed) - a bit more trouble at compile time, but a lot less debugging at run time.

Example:
Avar = 2
AAVar = 3

this will result in two variables being created, both of type variant, one with the value of 2 the other 3.

while this example
Option Explicit
Dim AVar as Integer
Avar = 2
AAVar = 3

will result in a compile time error because AAvar was not declared and the Option Explicit makes the use of a non-declared variable an error.

Dave

P.S. Dave what did you mean by

( you will have to take out the extra CRLFs inserted by the board width limitation when this was pasted)

Also the option explicit you added at the top of the code caused the same syntax error I removed and it was fine.

469

VB and the development of wizards / Re: For Loops inside of If Statement Help Please

« on: February 13, 2010, 02:20:11 AM »

Looks to me like it is a Cypress VB type conversion issue.  I've found that the VB interpreter in mach can do this sometimes.
This can be avoided by not letting variables be created on the fly as variants.

Both versions of the code below don't give errors.
( you will have to take out the extra CRLFs inserted by the board width limitation when this was pasted)

I also threw in some notes as pointers to other things you might want to consider doing.

Dave


Option Explicit   ' it's a good habit to require explicit declarations of all variables

Dim counter As Integer
Dim Ret As Integer      ' only needed for first version, not for 2nd version

Const MachMsgTypeOK As Integer = 0    'Define some constants for MachMsg dialog types                     
Const MachMsgReturnOK As Integer = 1   'Define some constants for MachMsg return codes                                                                     

' Try not to use Mach's magic numbers.
' They will be changing in Mach v4, using a name will make conversion to V4 easier as
' the named values will only need to be changed in one place for V4 conversion
Const OEMStartButtonCode = 1000
Const OEMStopButtonCode = 1003

If IsOutputActive(OUTPUT1) And GetVar(1) = 300 And Not IsActive(OEMTRIG1) Then
   For counter = 1 To 3
      DeActivateSignal(OUTPUT1)               'turn off output1
      Message ("Waiting For THC To Establish An Arc")         'display message
      Sleep (3000)
      ActivateSignal(OUTPUT1)
      Sleep (3000)                     'sleep time in milliseconds
       Message ("")
      If IsOutputActive(OUTPUT1) And IsActive(OEMTRIG1) Then
         DoOEMButton(OEMStartButtonCode)
         Message ("ARC ESTABLISHED")
         Sleep (2000)
         Message ("")
         Exit For
         If counter = 3 Then
            Ret = MachMsg ("Plasma Failed to Start three times. Press OK to Abort program", "FLAME OUT WARNING", MachMsgTypeOK)
            If Ret = MachMsgReturnOK Then
               DoOEMButton(OEMStopButtonCode)
            End If   
         End If
      End If
   Next
End If



' Ret is not needed in the above code fragment, if not needed elsewhere in the code, you might consider this version:

If IsOutputActive(OUTPUT1) And GetVar(1) = 300 And Not IsActive(OEMTRIG1) Then
   For counter = 1 To 3
      DeActivateSignal(OUTPUT1)               'turn off output1
      Message ("Waiting For THC To Establish An Arc")         'display message
      Sleep (3000)
      ActivateSignal(OUTPUT1)
      Sleep (3000)                     'sleep time in milliseconds
       Message ("")
      If IsOutputActive(OUTPUT1) And IsActive(OEMTRIG1) Then
         DoOEMButton(OEMStartButtonCode)
         Message ("ARC ESTABLISHED")
         Sleep (2000)
         Message ("")
         Exit For
         If counter = 3 Then
            If MachMsg ("Plasma Failed to Start three times. Press OK to Abort program", "FLAME OUT WARNING", MachMsgTypeOK) = MachMsg Then
               DoOEMButton(OEMStopButtonCode)
            End If   
         End If
      End If
   Next
End If

470

Machscreen Screen Designer / external editor

« on: February 12, 2010, 12:46:50 PM »

Klaus,
Thank you so much for adding this feature!
This is making editing so much nicer - now when I edit code in a button, it opens in my preferred editor and I can see syntax highlighting etc - very nice. and cut and paste buffers work better with other programs also.

One suggestion for a tweak - I suspect that the file name you pass to the editor either does not have an extension or is something other than .m1s.  Many editors select language highlights etc based on extension. In my editor, the passed file opens as plain text, so I figure it was .txt or no extension that was passed.

Would you set the extension of the passed temp file to .m1s?

Dave