Messages

61

Works in progress / Re: An unfinished screen set - "Mach Blue"

« on: April 23, 2006, 08:08:07 PM »

Thanks for the faith Brian

Beano got the easy shift tonight !

This damn setting screen must have been put together by someone after a good drinking session.....

I see the light ....... Or are my eye's deceiving me and we have another 'Pinky' screen popped up.

Ok Back to the fun......

(Thanks for the installer offer. I'm sure we would like to take this up.)

62

Works in progress / Re: An unfinished screen set - "Mach Blue"

« on: April 22, 2006, 09:25:26 PM »

Thanks for the feedback Art. It's just the kick we need as our 2am sessions keep going

Jeff, I'm with you on the requirement of a clear screen with good visability. All I can say at this stage is that the final colour scheme is really up in the air. There are some factors in Screen 4 that will drive the final scheme we produce but at this stage If Mr Bean gets his way who knows what we end up with ! It will however be based on a blue button scheme but the layers function in Photoshop is allowing all sorts of colours to be tried.....

It's also true to say that the screen captures we are showing are not as good as the true image when running in Mach3. Resizing and some extra compression is just dulling the clarity a little.

Tonights session resulted in the Offsets screen which I personally feel is showing some real character. Beano was complaining of a headache but he managed to keep going and really excelled with some ideas. Just wait till we get to the Diagnostics screen !!! There's not an inch of spare screen space free.....

A couple of points to note are that rather than a common header bar which we had, we now change the colour of the button of the visible page. It's working quite well in practice.

So I think it's worth at this stage showing a before and after shot. Obviously people have there own taste...............

I'm giving the lions share of the credit to Mr Bean on this

Cheers

63

General Mach Discussion / Re: Screen4 error

« on: April 21, 2006, 05:25:49 PM »

Hi,

I'm afraid the torn edge is just the icon used for the .exe

It's fine....

Did you try using screen4 with Mach3 ?

I don't have Mach2 installed so cannot check....

All I know is I had the same error as you until I copied all of the screen4 files into c:\mach3 and not a subfolder.

A screencap of my files attached.

64

General Mach Discussion / Re: Screen4 error

« on: April 21, 2006, 03:57:49 AM »

Hi,

I'm not sure what you mean by corrupted. When you download screen4 have you extracted all the files to your Mach3 folder.

i.e c:\mach3

?

Then you just run screen4 from the folder by double clicking screen4.exe

Thanks

Shaun

65

Works in progress / Re: An unfinished screen set - "Mach Blue"

« on: April 20, 2006, 08:01:52 PM »

Well another night's MSN with Mr Bean and we hopefully have the second page near completion. The MDI Screen.

The more we are doing this the easier it is becoming. The remaining pages should hopefully come together quickly.

Our tactic is basically I generate the Buttons and then put my feet up for the rest of the night

Well it's close to that. The buttons are generated and Mr Bean Then blocks out the estimated space for the panels.

He sends this space and between us on screen4 we move the hotspot overlays into a rough position. From here he is fine tuning the layout and doing the button 'cutouts' and a bit of tinkering with Screen4 takes place.....

It was a hard job but I think he's forgotten the pink theme

Toolpath page next....

A shot from Mach Steel Blue attached...

66

Works in progress / Re: An unfinished screen set - "Mach Blue"

« on: April 20, 2006, 06:22:12 AM »

Marcel,

Unfortunately I don't have a lathe as I would love to try out Mach3 with one. I remember as an apprentice quite some years ago having great fun using one......

Ref your question about a screenset for a Lathe, I don't think we had any plans to make one but I'm sure we could do one after completing the Mill screen. A quick look at the lathe .set and it looks like a lot less work !

I'm sure Mr Bean wouldn't mind

Cheers

67

Mach Screens / Re: Screen design basics (Using Screen4)

« on: April 19, 2006, 06:14:00 AM »

Also guilty of reading and offering no response. 

I'm not sure how easy it is to develop a screen using the same size monitor resolution. I'm running dual screen with a higher resolution so it makes life a lot easier. I have tried dropping the resolution down to 'test' the screen and it's difficult in Screen4. I am using Mach3 to load the screenset in for viewing.

To create the 'invisible' buttons you simply drop an image button on the panel and it will place a default graphic button. right click this and you will see the image location says None. Delete the None text and click ok. You are then left with a clear box that can be resized to cover the active area of your graphic button below.

You may need to click Edit / bitmaps to back.

To edit the scripts you need to be in Mach3.

I'm still learining things so cannot offer a lot more

Cheers

68

Works in progress / Re: An unfinished screen set - "Mach Blue"

« on: April 19, 2006, 06:04:47 AM »

Ballendo,

Thanks for the info on the LED's. It looks like they will be removed if they offer no real use.

Regarding the graphics the buttons are created in Xara Webstyle and Mr Bean is using Photoshop for the panels and anything clever !

You requested the steelblue .set Did you manage to try out the zip file above ?

Thanks

69

Works in progress / Re: An unfinished screen set - "Mach Blue"

« on: April 18, 2006, 08:04:54 PM »

Thanks for that Benny. For now the leds are there with no name....
I cannot believe I hadn't tried the arrow buttons to move graphics. I cannot understand it as I actually program and use these keys during form layouts 
It makes it a lot easier !

Well we didn't manage to progress far tonight. We had hoped to move onto the MDI screen but we found that when we tried our layouts on a 1024 * 768 screen it didn't go to plan and exceed the taskbar etc.... I blame Mr Bean and he blames me

So hopefully he pulled it together and with some tweaks we hope our 1st screen - Program run is almost complete. I managed to convince him to develop the pink theme low key......

So.. rather than plod ahead doing all the screens and then getting feedback we will do one. Tweak / amend on any comments and then move on.

The attached zip file contains 3 colour themes. Mach Blue, Mach Dark Blue and Mach Steel Blue.

If you wouldn't mind giving them a try we would appreciate it.

Extract the zip and copy the contents to the c:\mach3\bitmaps\MachTestScreens folder.
You will need to make the MachTestScreens folder

The .set files should go into the c:\mach3     folder.

(Paths obviously change if you have a different location)

Using Mach3 you should be able to try them out.

Note this is only the Program Run Screen. After 1st loading. Minimize mach3 then restore it to fix the led state bug.

Good luck !

70

Works in progress / Re: An unfinished screen set - "Mach Blue"

« on: April 18, 2006, 08:34:38 AM »

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. I agree that clarity should be an essential part of the screenset. I'm hoping at least one or two of the screens posted meet this. Certainly the darker colour ones. I'm not quite sure on Mr Beans Mach Pink however

I have a query. I need to add 3 labels for the leds shown next to the reset buton. But what are they for ?

Can someone please advise what these should be labelled.

Thanks