Messages

161

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 screen GRAPHICS -- makin' it Purdy

« on: March 10, 2015, 06:09:16 PM »

it is Hex values

Tried this. NO success so far.

How do you put a hex value in a string field?

       scr.SetProperty('ledTEST', 'Color', '200');

       scr.SetProperty('ledTEST', 'Color', "Light");  Light is a var with an integer numeric value

       scr.SetProperty('ledTEST', 'Color', '0x60');

162

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 screen GRAPHICS -- makin' it Purdy

« on: March 10, 2015, 05:38:32 PM »

The scr.********* functions do not work in all cases. At least not for me.

It will be a matter of experimentation to find which are useful . . .  unless somebody has already made a list.

For example, I cannot get the color to change on an LED. I have tried passing a string i.e. 'Red'  'Blue' etc. without success and also tried passing RGB values i.e. '(200,100,10)' also with no success.

I'll try hex values before giving up on that particular effort. LED's don't seem all that useful anyway.

163

Mach4 Toolbox / Re: scr.****************** (Screen Calls) List and example..........

« on: March 10, 2015, 05:31:03 PM »

Scott,

The comment in your code states that some number of scr.********* functions have been replaced by new mc.*********

So, what are the new functions 

164

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: MACH4 - Modbus

« on: March 10, 2015, 05:46:43 AM »

Since pretty MACH3 screens are not really related to Modbus, I started a new thread for Mach4 screen GRAPHICS specifically and posted my first experiments in 'Purdy Screen' there. There is a tiny video of a first try at a lighted rocker switch . .  

http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,29442.0.html

165

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 screen GRAPHICS -- makin' it Purdy

« on: March 09, 2015, 07:28:56 PM »

By dual state, I mean Image LED's that use one image for on, and one image for off. This allowed me to create checkboxes and radio buttons in Mach3.

Workarounds of course are never the first choice, but I'm thinking that checkboxes and radio buttons could be made from the image toggle buttons. They are a lot more versatile than the LEDs.

There are some number of scr.********* functions that can get and set properties of the screen controls. I do not know if these are documented officially anywhere, but I just fell over them in some scripts and used them in my controller screen. Pretty slick stuff.

Thus far I have only used toggle buttons and a couple of sliders, so I'm just scratching the surface at this point. I am inclined to want to avoid tools like FormBUilder and the Widget thing and just build my own library of doo-dads or maybe make the screens up in C# and just talk to them with Lua. Certainly there ar eplanty of libraries for dx and OpenGl. Not really sure yet. Just tinkering at this point. 

I am just starting to tinker with a touch screen for my next gen of controllers and there is a graphics primitives library for that so if I go that rout it *might* be fairly simple to port over to any platform by swapping in equivalent functions. That would be the extreme optimistic viewpoint . . .  I should lie probably just down until that passes. 

166

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Lua 5.3? Yes, No, When?

« on: March 09, 2015, 02:30:23 PM »

It would be good to get an answer here because the difference between 5.2 and 5.3 is more than yet another bell or whistle.

Integer data type was added. 5.2  is all floats. That will have a large impact on any math code, one might imagine.

Creating integers out of floats is something of a PIA and I would speculate that the integer types will speed up Lua code significantly.

167

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach4 screen GRAPHICS -- makin' it Purdy

« on: March 09, 2015, 02:21:55 PM »

Can you explain 'dual state'?

There is provision for two scripts, so that is obviously not what you are looking for. The smoothness of curved lines (or circles) is not impressive, but that looks to me like an antialiasing issue.

Image toggles was just added literally a few days ago. Do you believe that he screen tools will not be improved from this point? To my eye, unlike MACH3, Mach4 seems to be getting a lot of attention and is coming along well, so I am optimistic.

I was speaking to one of the engineers at MachMotion today and they are very high on Mach4. That is one of many indicators that Mach4 will be a stable piece of software. Fingers still crossed, but so far so good, I would say.

In any case, I am having fun with the new screen goodies. FormBuilder gets pretty boring pretty quick.

168

Mach4 General Discussion / Mach4 screen GRAPHICS -- makin' it Purdy

« on: March 09, 2015, 08:25:18 AM »

Now that Mach4 has image toggle buttons, I think its time to dedicate a thread to making the MACH4 screens attractive .  and of course intuitive and 'user friendly' at the same time.

Also a place to pester the developers for cool stuff and provide inspiration and incentive by demonstrating what can be done with the tools they provide.

The attached video is the part of the MACH screen where I put the InTurn™ 4th axis controls. For those who have not played with MACH4 screen mods, jump in! The stuff you see in the little attachment took only a couple of hours to do, including the scripts behind the buttons.

Just to show something a little different, I added a lighted rocker switch in place of one of the boring toggles. Pretty slick (if I do say so myself), however, I am thrarted in attempts to do some really cool stuff because I cannot find a way to get rid of the border around each button.

So two questions to start off.

1) can the borders be removed from buttons
2) what is Z order for? Seems to have no effect on anything

169

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Feature Request

« on: March 09, 2015, 07:14:01 AM »

I was not vague.  Some of the other features are not finished yet.  The tool path is done.  But we really haven't promoted it at this point yet because we don't know what all we will add.  So if vague being that "I don't know what else at this point" then I guess so.

I asked for a specific feature, not the whole to-do list. I selfishly wanted to know if that specific feature had made it onto the list. I further asked if it is in, or will be in the pro version and said I would be happy to pay for a license if that feature is included. I don't think I asked something unreasonable . . like the date it would be available.

No one noticed the "LOL" in the comment?  Or was it just you?  It was not sarcasm for the sake of anything.  It was a joke.  That is how I am.  I like to joke around.  I'm a happy guy.  And I refuse to walk around on eggs shells just to keep from accidentally pissing someone off.  I will be the first to tell you that I'm not politically correct in any shape, form, or fashion.  It is not worth my time.  We have precious few minutes to live on this Earth to be wasting them on that kind of stuff.  

You are preaching to the choir . . . I invented 'I don't care if I piss you off'   

And I was trying to be honest too.  I have that "editor change feature" on my list.  But it is way down the list at the moment.  Nothing else meant at all.

The implication was, as I read it, that the requested feature was not important enough. This forum has enough bullies and personally I don't mind at all going toe to toe, but I know for a fact that a lot of people don;t post on THIS forum for fear their ideas will be ridiculed.  

I am guilty too and I'll take the spanking for it when I have it coming. Probably sounds odd coming from me, but I think we could all be a bit more sensitive and it would improve the forum.

And now I find myself getting a lecture (on my birthday of all days) from someone that doesn't even bother to look at the editors and see if the other feature that you "specifically referenced" but are being "vague" about (by not mentioning it again) has been implemented.  It seems that you would rather just open up a forum and post Negative Nancy comments.  Thanks, but no thanks.  Just so as not to be vague, I'll throw it out there...  Printing.  It needed to be done.  It took me three weeks to get it in there.  I won't get paid a penny for it either as gcEdit is freely available in the Demo.  You are welcome!

Jeez, if I knew it was your birthday, I would definitely have waited to piss you off.  I did check the editor. How else would I know to ask for the feature? If there is a demo of the pro version that I could have looked at, then you have me there, and my apology. I did not check. Rather I assumed I would need to buy the license, which incidentally I said I am happy to do if the feature is in there.

For the rest of you that post constructive things, I want you to know that I spend MY time trying to make this software the best that it can possibly be.  I spend 12 or more hours every day doing that.  We listen to your requests and we try to get every one of them in there somehow within reason.  We are not going to cater to the 1% on anything though.  We are not going to write one person custom software that does EVERYTHING he wants it to do in a niche environment.  But yeah...  if it is something everyone will benefit from, we try to get it in there.  It just takes time.  Lots of it.  
Steve

"the rest of you?"   This is the 'ah *********/attaboy' ratio at work. I am defined by one post as Negative Nancy. I have been posting a lot of very positive comments about MACH4 since returning here. I would wager at least 90% positive in fact. I have completed porting over my controller only because you and the rest of the mach team have done a very good job getting mach4 more stable and a lot of the forum members have also contributed greatly to the available documentation and knowledge base. My last visit was when the Demo was first released and there was not a lot of good things to say, except that TCP Modbus was fast as hell . .  and I think I did say that.

So stop living in the past . . . 

170

Mach4 General Discussion / Re: Mach 4 Feature Request

« on: March 09, 2015, 06:20:17 AM »

Greg at Tormach did exactly what he should be doing in "HIS" world . Locking the user out from the internals that they have little to no need to be tinkering with in there.  In that WORLD you have to protect the users from themselves AND protect the machine so it can be stable and the OEM can trouble shoot it.

NOW REMEMBER Tormach gave everyone the  option to UNLOCK the Mach3 machine so YOU could have at it. But at point you were on you OWN as to trouble shooting it WHEN you messed it up.  

The NEW Tormach unit is a dedicated CNC machine controller , Same as HAAS,OKUMA,MAZAK, etc,etc.( Just a smaller scale)  NOT a do everything motion thingy to make everyone happy.

Terri,

I was not arguing whether Tormach has a right to create and follow their own business plan.

My comment was that it in not reasonable . . . .  in my opinion . .  to try to make a direct comparison between Tormach's new pilot and MACH4. An analogy might be comparing a portrait to a bunch of tubes of paint and a paintbrush.

Pilot is a 'purpose built' product and MACH4 is more of a tool. The portrait you look at and enjoy and it SHOULD be a finished and well defined and detailed piece. But you can't change it.

MACH4 is tubes of paint and a brush. The way I view it, you are not buying a product in its final form. Many folks will do a 'paint-by-number' type of picture, some will only use the white tube of paint and other will create great portraits limited only by their skill and creativity.

For example, what can be reasonable compared? Pilot does 'X" and Mach4 does not? As (Smurph, I think it was) has said time and again, whatever you want MACH to do that is doesn't do already, you can probably make it do.

I am not usually one to pick up the pom-poms for MACH, but I have to say given the choice between Pilot and MACH4 . . .  no brainer.