I will reply inline:
Hi Rimmel,
I think your criticism is unfair.
Differing opinions are always welcome.
You pointed out a screen where a small fraction of a control was truncated by virtue of the screen size. Screens written by NFS are usually pretty good, they fit most screens and/or scale to most screens but not all.
Because a screen set does not fit perfectly with your PC screen without you having to do a few screen editing tweaks you are claiming incompetence by NFS? Of the other CNC software you have mentioned how many
have as able screen editing and GUI functions as Mach4? The screen editing and GUI functions represent a very much larger chunk of code than Machs core and very much harder to achieve and are a major step up
over its competeition.
But NFS are
SELLING this software and as such you would think that the first screen that greeted anyone would be in good visual order ESPECIALLY when you have been working on it for 3 - 4 years. So I must disagree and say that first impressions are paramount. Also I am a professional computer programmer (since 1997) and to say the GUI carries more code than the actual core Mach4 operations is frankly absurd, epsecially considering GUI driven development suites that are available today (point and click and 90% of the GUI code is written for you). My actual initial reaction to starting mach4 up was "Oh jesus... really?". Then click more or less any button and get the message that you can't do this in the demo... my reaction was "well why release a demo if you can't actualy do anything with it?"
More to the point, PlanetCNC, UCCNC, Masso and a few others have managed to do just that in a fraction of the time - from scratch.
Additionally, does it matter that much....I mean this is software for controlling a mill, router, lathe or whatever, is an imperfection in the screen set going to change how the machine works? What really important here?
Again, confidence in the product e.g. if you cannot fix simple glitches in the GUI in 3 - 4 years it does not give someone the confidence to spend $200 - £1,400, especially when the DEMO is restricted in such a manner you cannot realistic do ANYTHING with it.
A number of machining functions/features have to be enacted by the motion controller not Mach, backlash compensation, lathe threading and THC are some examples. They must be done in realtime
which absolutely precludes them being enacted within Mach, Mach is not realtime. At this time the external motion controllers have some but not all features implemented. You mention the ESS, you may
have been following the Warp9 forum but Backlash compensation is in Beta testing now and the majority of the code for lathe threading is already written. Warp9 have decided to 'up the ante' by having mulitpulse
spindle feedback and this has caused a delay to the release of lathe threading. The PMDX-422 on the other hand does support lathe threading but not backlash compensation.
Granted - but why has it taken so long? The Mach3 Warp9 software has been table and not changed for a while, so it's not as if they are working on that. Many feel the information dribbling out of NFS is a factor.
As I have Mach4Hobby without MacroB I don't make that claim but certainly ANYTHING I could do in Mach3 I can do in Mach4
EXCLUDING only those 'hardware only' features.
OK that's good - however how do I test this for myself? well apart from spending $200 for the privilage...
The main reason for me to migrate from Mach3 (three years use with two parallel ports) to Mach4 (18 moths with ESS and two BoBs) was because VB, or more accurately CE, the cutdown version of VB that
ships with Mach3 as its scripting language was and is riddled with inconsistentencies. Look up a recent thread in Mach3 about 'Scripter Complie Errors". Lua has proven to be absolutely consistent, not easy to
use to start with to be sure, but superbly consistent when it does. I have likewise found Mach4 to be much more stable. There are oddities certainly but few bugs.
Again, I would love to find that out, but recoil at spending $200 to do so.
You suggest my criticism is unfair and if the software was free or sub $50 then I would whole heartedly agree, but when you load the demo and the initial screen looks like a childs finger painting with near zero functionality I would sincerely argue with you.
At this point I am sticking with Mach3 and giving Masso a year to mature, I think their system is the future, dedicated hardware and software at a reasonable price - when you consider you need a decent motion controller, the licence and PC to make Mach4 work.
Regards
Rimmel
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