The concept of axis2 was initially a quick fix for an environment where there were new users and different machines in use.
The buttons were enlarged because most machines had a elo-touchscreen from previous controllers already available.
And to make it look a bit more modern. The use of color for feedback ie job running = red menu bar and paused orange - etc.
The new ops were taught to leave a machine in a state of red or orange if there was a current job on the machine, to avoid another user from disturbing it, hence the color change.
The lathes in shop were set to a greenish feel while mills were set to a blue type to distinguish the difference of appearance of machine types.
the spindle override was also set to a min of 30 percent to avoid stalls on the mills for safety. A timer at the bottom was also started on a job run to help ops calculate a quick idea of machine time used per cycle.
Axis was chosen because most students grasped the concept of a controller in only a day or so, some older bridgeport type ops preferring the dro and newer users liking the backplot.
I was hoping to do a touchscreen in glade or QT but the time constraints did not allow, and i found it kept breaking on different linux installs with different python libs. Hence trusty old tk tcl.
I will be committed to maintain this version (Axis2). as i still periodically add/fix requests for our environment.
only for some reason the sliders cover the spindle dro, maybe I should try a different monitor resolution?
