New subforum for physical HMI?

Would it make any sense to have a subforum in dedicated to physical controls?  A specific place to discuss control panels, pendants, MPGs, keyboards, keypads, buttons, etc.

I can see the argument against it, as having too many subforums can be a bit overwhelming.  On the other hand, I'm not quite sure where the right place would be to start discussions on that topic.

Steve

I am all for it. I prefer to not have: touch screen, mouse or full keyboard. Getting there is a battle and a half.

JT wrote:

Computers and OS's would be a place to discuss that.
 

That doesn't seem like the right fit to me, as the description is "A place to discuss desktop computer and Operating System topics."  I don't see how this topic aligns with that.

Perhaps you were thinking because we "borrow" computer peripherals, it's a good fit:

• USB Keyboards & keypads
• Mice, trackballs
• Joysticks
• Shuttle jog controllers
• Monitors
• Touchscreens

But we also use plenty of things that are not computer peripherals:

• Off-the-shelf pendants (e.g. the type made for Mach3)
• Custom pendants (e.g. a Mesa 7i73 with an MPG and a few simple buttons and LEDs)
• Custom matrix keypads (e.g. Mesa 7i73 again)
• Custom small secondary displays
• Various Arduino-esque solutions

Each of these elements has its own pitfalls and considerations when it comes to usability, safety, and integrating/configuring with LinuxCNC.

A complete HMI implementation for a LinuxCNC machine is a combination of a GUI choice and often one or more physical HMI elements.  Choosing the elements and getting them to interact in a sane fashion is part of anyone's LinuxCNC experience if they go beyond just running their machine with a mouse and keyboard.

I see a dedicated subforum as a good place to collect the dozens of "how do I get my joystick/keyboard/Shuttle/MPG/buttons to work with LinuxCNC" questions.  It should also be a good place to discuss more broadly what makes a good/productive/safe user experience.  Why and when you'd choose physical controls over controls only presented in a GUI, for example.

 

Isn't all of that "User interface" though? That section is obviously dedicated to *Graphical* User Interfaces but if you think about the fact that everything you interact with on anything you consider an "HMI" is either a duplicate, or replacement, or facilitates the graphical user interface....isn't that where HMI and all the other stuff mentioned above really belongs? Maybe split out a sub forum for hardware user interfaces or something

blazini36 wrote:

Isn't all of that "User interface" though? That section is obviously dedicated to *Graphical* User Interfaces but if you think about the fact that everything you interact with on anything you consider an "HMI" is either a duplicate, or replacement, or facilitates the graphical user interface....isn't that where HMI and all the other stuff mentioned above really belongs? Maybe split out a sub forum for hardware user interfaces or something
 

Thanks, that's exactly the point I was trying to make.  I think it's valuable to have a subforum within the User Interface section dedicated to various hardware user interface elements.  Maybe my mistake was using the somewhat old-fashioned "HMI" (Human-Machine Interface) term in when pleading my case, but it's really synonymous with "User Interface." 

With all due respect to JT, I still don't feel like the Computer Hardware subforum is the right place for those discussions. 
 

TangentAudio wrote:

blazini36 wrote:

Isn't all of that "User interface" though? That section is obviously dedicated to *Graphical* User Interfaces but if you think about the fact that everything you interact with on anything you consider an "HMI" is either a duplicate, or replacement, or facilitates the graphical user interface....isn't that where HMI and all the other stuff mentioned above really belongs? Maybe split out a sub forum for hardware user interfaces or something
 
Thanks, that's exactly the point I was trying to make.  I think it's valuable to have a subforum within the User Interface section dedicated to various hardware user interface elements.  Maybe my mistake was using the somewhat old-fashioned "HMI" (Human-Machine Interface) term in when pleading my case, but it's really synonymous with "User Interface." 

With all due respect to JT, I still don't feel like the Computer Hardware subforum is the right place for those discussions. 

 

Yeah I agree about it not being mixed with Computers as it's generally not "computer" hardware anymore than a Mesa card is. At some level it connects to a computer but if you don't consider it part of the computer it does not belong there.....

For example you can buy various EtherCAT physical HMIs on Aliexpress, or as mentioned you can use a 7i73 to make your own, or use something like arduino-connector to build one.....I don't think any of that's part of a computer but it's certainly belongs in an HMI subforum.

Another point for it being part of User Interfaces I was trying to make JT himself would probably get since he's been working on JET. JET obviously belongs in user interfaces. I've been working on an all-in-one control device, touchscreen, MPG, buttons, knobs, keyboard, etc. If I used JET to make a UI, I'm probably not going to put a FeedRato O/R on the UI because I have a physical encoder for it, same with spindle control, run/stop, etc. It's all part of the same thing, it's the hardware side of the User Interface. Like you may use Gmoccapy because you only use a touchscreen, you may use something with less UI controls because you have more hardware controls.

If I go to the Computer's section it's because I want to find out if mobile CPUs are OK, or how much RAM I might expect to use, or what NIC plays nice with Mesa cards. I wouldn't even expect to go there to find out about whether a USB MPG is OK, if it existed I'd expect to find that in a hardware subforum of User Interfaces.

Case in point, I've been working on a project that adds support for StreamDeck macro keypads that have built-in displays.  The computer hardware forum is not the right place to discuss it, in my opinion.  I started this thread about a new subforum around the same time I started that project, knowing I'd eventually want a sensible place to discuss it, and other related topics.

I started a thread for the project in "Show your stuff" for now.  forum.linuxcnc.org/show-your-stuff/52628...-for-linuxcnc#300521