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New Mach4 interface designer suite (Lua)
« on: March 03, 2018, 01:31:27 AM »
Hi folks

Did any body knows this UI development Suit (http://www.cranksoftware.com/storyboard-suite#tabs-3), And can we develop a Lua UI for Mach4 using it?

I am a beginner and any useful information will be Appreciated  :)
Re: New Mach4 interface designer suite (Lua)
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2018, 02:20:53 AM »
Hi,
why? Is there something about Mach's UI that is not right?

Mach4 is a machine control program, its primary purpose is to machine parts not present a really fancy UI. Have seen a Hass controller in action recently....
boring as hell, visually speaking but it sure cuts the mustard when it comes to running Gcode and making parts. I'll forgive any program for being downright
ugly if it can do a great job of running Gcode and ideally conversational programming.

Craig
'I enjoy sex at 73.....I live at 71 so its not too far to walk.'
Re: New Mach4 interface designer suite (Lua)
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2018, 06:21:51 AM »
Hi joeaverage..

No i don't say there is something wrong in Mach4 UI but I want to get out of fashion and to make a modern fancy UI that Mach4 designer can't help me with neither wxLua can!

and by the way it is a little hard to do things in the basic UI screen editor like align things and new special events.

Offline smurph

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Re: New Mach4 interface designer suite (Lua)
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2018, 02:56:34 PM »
You can use whatever you want to develop a GUI with Mach 4 as long as it can interface with WINAPI style DLLs.  Mach4GUI.exe is just a GUI front end for the Mach4Core.dll.  I have a C# based GUI and a VB based GUI that I have played with.  wxMach.exe is another "static" GUI front end.  But beware that there is NO support from Mach for this type of thing.  OEMs tend to use this stuff and THEY support what they write.  Any and all scripting that is done in the GUI will also have to be implemented. 

Mach4GUI.exe is a BIG and complex project.  Duplicating its' functionality would not be an easy task for all but a well seasoned developer.  So is it possible?  Yes.  Is it feasible?  Only you can answer that.  I'm not sure what that crank software suite uses.  From reading about it, it looks to be just a UI modeling suit so that engineers can model up the UI so that real programmers can duplicate it.

LUA cannot interface to WINAPI style DLLs, so LUA is not a candidate for a complete GUI.  Now, one could write a C/C++ exe that hosts LUA and then go from there.  But there would need to be a lot of "glue" code. 

Steve
Re: New Mach4 interface designer suite (Lua)
« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2018, 05:41:40 AM »
Hi Steve..
thank you very much for your comprehensive answer, it was very helpful.
So can you pls recommend me the best way (in your opinion) to make a great modern Mach4 UI without spending tons of hours writing a glue code or something like it?, Regardless the used languages and tools.

And thanks in advance  :)

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Re: New Mach4 interface designer suite (Lua)
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2018, 02:08:20 PM »
Use the Mach4GUI.  People are making lots of really modern looking screens with it.  All done with background/button images and custom fonts.

Otherwise, you will need to suddenly become a programmer (not recommended).  :)

Steve

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Re: New Mach4 interface designer suite (Lua)
« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2018, 02:15:04 PM »
Another one (work in process), but you will get the idea.

Steve