I agree with Gerry (Once again) Z level layers would be great. In fact they are essential. I know this has been raised more than once over the years. I also know that Art has confirmed that they are not able to do this with Mach's curent display arrangement.

JetCams screen designer had the unique work around by enabling layers in the designer, but exporting a one image screen capture for the final screen, essentialy simulating layers. The only trouble was editing a screen made by another person. You needed the working files.
Using Realdraw you could also do the same, but again it was impossible to edit by another user without the working files. As shown by the many requests to edit the MachBlue screen

Personally I think ANY screen designer will be limited by the limitations of Machs current display.

Flash was, and is the ultimate designer, however its very hard for a novice to make a screen of substance. Apart from Jason (Zealous) and Scott, I havnt seen many screens made using flash. Although it gives complete design control.

What we really need is a plugin that gets all the inputs and outputs from Mach. This way we could have a third party display system that runs independant from mach. Imagine a HTML page that could control Mach. There isnt many design limitations you cant do with HTML. And there are loads of free editors too.

The unltiamte system would be a third party HTML designer, with built in preset controls that exported out an html page and spoke to Mach via the plugin hooks.

It wouldnt be too hard to do, given the ammount of open source HTML software already out there.

They only other thing that should be considered is that it is all contained in ONE file. So if a screen was made all the HTML files, pictures and sounds were exported as a zip file. The plugin would read the zip file, without it needing to be unzipped.
That way any user could distribute a scree as one file, and any user could edit it.

While I like the idea of this new screen designer, I would prefer to see work done on the plugin and HTLM ZIP, one file instead.

You're not going to get a different screen type with the current version of Mach3. So you might as well get the best designer possible to work with the current system. When Brian starts on the next "Mach", hopefully a better system will be in place. (Although I don't think the current system is all that bad) 


As for Flash, there are two big hurdles. One, no documentation. I was going to learn to make a Flash screen a year ago, but with no docs, I just quickly learned how to do regular screens instead. And two, the fact that you need to learn Flash. I can do a regular screen, no problem. But even if I had documentation for Flash Screens, I'm guessing I'd need to spend around 100 additional hours (or more) learning to code in Flash (is it called action script??) I'm sure that the majority of screen designers would run into the same issues. But until some good documentation becomes available, I don't think you'll see any new Flash screens.

Flash.....  Yeap, there is NO doubt, it is the best screen desingner anywhere, BUT, the learning curve is crazy. I can easily say, that it took me about a year to get to the point that I could make my own working screens in it, and that was with Skype help, and persoanal visiits to Jasons house to get some one on one.

For me at least. It takes me about 4-5 times as long to make a Flash screen than a regular screen since Flash screens have many, many "Maintenance layers" that you never see but or essential for Flash to operate as a Mach3 screen.  I Broke down a purchased the CS4 Flash IDE and it ran me about 300.00 bucks off of Ebay, and that is probably much higher than many would be willing to pay.

Klaus,  I for one am VERY, VERY gratefull for the work you have done, and continue to do.......  I also think the best "Work around" solution would be to have layers in your screen designer and then that would Export as a single "Merged" bit map....  I dont care if no one else can "Undo" my layers, if they want to modify my screen for some reason then they can email me for the original bitmaps or do thier own screen.  

Most people here, dont want to design a screen, they just want to use one, so the above Layers workaround would be great!!  Those of us that do make screens here and there to make extra money really DONT wont some guy or OEM making money off of our work. (sorry Benny, some of use want some money for our work).  I and others here, make screens both for Sale and Free use, there is Alot of work that goes into a screen set.

scott

Hi all

You wont believe it, occasionally I have to do something else than programing   That's why it took a bit longer this time.
In version 1.19.3 I implemented the option to print data from info - and hotkeys view. About the z-level problem I'm still thinking how to insert it into the program structure.
I will not write a unix version because I don't know enough about unix. There are long and hard discussions about open source. In that subject I'm old fashioned, this is probably because of my age.


Klaus

Klaus, thank you for your work. I have no idea about coding but in less than one day on this forum i have customized my mach screens to better suite my needs, and i am currently setting up video feed using your plugin to aid my tip2tip touchoffs.

you adhere to KISS principal and i had 0 learning curve using your designer.


well done and keep it up

Suggestions for editing Global items.


I know that all objects that are global are displayed on page 0 and can be edited from there, but I haven't seen yet how to change the global setting. The only way I can see to do this right now is to just delete the object from screen 0. I like the idea of haveing all global objects on one page. This makes it nice but I'm trying to figure out a way to edit these from any page. I relise this could get complicated. My thoughts are it would be great if the global objects could be edited from any page by seleting it and changeing its global status to yes or no. If it is yes and you change to no, it is deleted from page 0 and not the rest of the pages. They would have to be edited individually. One step further would be a check box to delete all or just from page 0. One more step above that would be to have a box to list pages to delete items from (1,2,6,9) for example. This way if you have 12 pages and only want to remove it from one of them, it would be a very simple process. If you change it from no to yes, it would be added to page 0 and to all other pages.

Thanks,
Brett

Suggestions for selecting/editing items in design view.


I really like the the way we can drag a box to select multiple items and Hold down the Ctrl key and click a single item to dictate which is to be the driving item for alignment and spacing buttons. That is very nice. I can think of 2 tools in this area that would be very nice.

1) In some CAD packages I use you can select multiple items and then deselect individually by holding down the shift key and selecting the individual item you want to deselect. If you picked the wrong item to deselect you just hold down the shift key and click to reselect and it puts back in the selected group again. In screen 4 this is done by holding down the Ctrl key and selecting individual items to deselect.

2) It would be great if you could select multiple items and re size all selected based on ratios. If you had one item that was 10 pixels high and a second that was 20 pixels high and selected both. You would hold down the control key to choose which would be the driving item if it was not already. Lets say the 20 pixel high item is the driving item in this case. You drag it to double its height to 40 pixels and the original 10 pixel item height would now be 20 pixels high. I think that would be best but an alternative method might be if the items could be edited from the overview page. Maybe if you select multiple items in design view and go to the overview page they would be listed at the top and highlighted or sorted by selected items.

Just throwing the line out and fishing for input,
Brett

Hi

in version 1.19.4 I implemented the following:

selected items can be deselect by holding the shift-key down and click on the item you want to deselect
global elements are editable on every page, this feature must be enabled in the settings menu
selected items can be pasted in actual, every or selected page. As soon as the actual page is included in the selection, it cannot be pasted on the original position.


Klaus

ummm global resize would be nice too... take a 1024x768 screen up to 1280x1024 for example with a simple click.. seems a feasable thing to be able to do???  maybe it can allready but i just missed that bit?

and coffee with my burger please!     (since im pacing orders)

Klaus,

    OK, can you make it where your Screen Designer can program my VCR???   

But, Seriously, spectacular job your doing!!!  Any progress on doing the Z level thing then being able to combine them to a single layer bitmap?

Scott