Touch Screen Design

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25 Aug 2013 18:13 #38062 by BigJohnT
Touch Screen Design was created by BigJohnT
I've been using a touch screen with a modified version of Touchy that includes gremlin and ngcgui for quite some time now.

Some of the things I like are:
Simple screen layouts
Tabbed screens

Some of the things I don't like are:
Touchy assumes you don't have an axis selector switch for jogging
Touchy disables jogging if you do anything
The tool change dialog has a tiny mouse sized OK button
Some of the buttons are mouse sized
The lack of user configuration
The tiny tiny message area which I use a lot to prompt me to change the vari-speed setting.

I have found my work flow to be like this:
Create a G code file on my desktop and save to the BP
Wake up the touch screen
Turn on the machine
Cycle through the macros till I find the tool load one then load tool 1
Jog down to Z0 and touch off
Repeat for other tools
Go to auto screen and hit refresh then up and down till I find the file. Keeping the number of files low helps.
Select the file
Go to the Gremlin tab and visually check that the back plot is what I expect
Go back to the auto screen and run the G code file.

The biggest problem I see with any GUI is they don't seem to work for every application. Trying to cover as much as you can in a GUI seems to over complicate them IMHO.

Having said the above I still fancy making a framework that allows integrators to build the screen from Glade how they like and put things where they like with a minimum of fuss over code. Do you guys think this is possible? How would you approach this?

Thanks
JT

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25 Aug 2013 19:22 #38065 by newbynobi
Replied by newbynobi on topic Touch Screen Design
Hallo JT,

I was thinking as you do, when I tried to get my first screen. I quickly find out, that it would be relay hard to get the solution for all users just to click there screen together with glade, without the need to code much.

The result is gmoccapy, witch is my approach to get a screen for a lot of users. Most of your don't likes are solved already and the message system is in work. In 0.9.7 I introduced a touch screen file selection dialog, so no small buttons are needed.

To make a "click it together" screen, I would begin to make a lot of user defined widgets, with a standard communication channel, similar to hal. The user can build his design with glade and when finished he opens your config dialog witch will loads the glade file and give the user the possibility to hook signals and slots together.

Norbert

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25 Aug 2013 19:35 #38067 by BigJohnT
Replied by BigJohnT on topic Touch Screen Design
Just thinking out loud a bit, would it be possible to have an ini file or config file that listed all the widgets with the option to say if they are used or not? I know some would have to be in groups so that would be a group option. For example some people use gremlin and some do not. If you have gremlin = yes in the ini then you would have to have all the gremlin related objects in your glade file.

Did you do anything with manual tool touch off?

I really need to try gmoccapy on the BP to see what you have so far. Do you have a link to using it?

JT

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25 Aug 2013 19:46 - 25 Aug 2013 19:47 #38068 by newbynobi
Replied by newbynobi on topic Touch Screen Design
Halo JT,

just take a look at gmoccapy WIKI

there you will find also links to videos for the basic use. unfortunately non has included the file selection dialog for touch screens.
Manual Tool Touch off in basic is included already, please explain in detail your wishes.

To your question:
It would be possible to make such a file, but it is much easier, just to edit the glade file and setting all the stuff you do not like to "visible=False", otherwise you will have to build the python handler file dynamically, what would need a lot coding and very deep knowledge of python and linuxcnc.

I do thing that gscreen is a good approach to get more different user defined screens, even if a little bit of coding will be needed.

Norbert
Last edit: 25 Aug 2013 19:47 by newbynobi.

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25 Aug 2013 21:18 #38071 by Mike_Eitel
Replied by Mike_Eitel on topic Touch Screen Design
Hi

Is it possible to run gmoccapy on beaglebone machinekit?

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25 Aug 2013 21:52 #38073 by newbynobi
Replied by newbynobi on topic Touch Screen Design
Halo Mike,

I do not know if it will run on beaglebone, but as axis does, I do not see a reason that it wouldn't.


Norbert

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26 Aug 2013 00:20 #38079 by Mike_Eitel
Replied by Mike_Eitel on topic Touch Screen Design
I'm not yet ready with my system
HW is still quite experimental , but sooner or later I'll give it a try.
And will report to you.

My feeling is that this combination could be a perfect match.
Especially for 3d printer.

Mike

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26 Aug 2013 00:32 #38081 by cmorley
Replied by cmorley on topic Touch Screen Design

I've been using a touch screen with a modified version of Touchy that includes gremlin and ngcgui for quite some time now.



Having said the above I still fancy making a framework that allows integrators to build the screen from Glade how they like and put things where they like with a minimum of fuss over code. Do you guys think this is possible? How would you approach this?

Thanks
JT


If you look at Gscreen's Gaxis sample config, that is a screen that does most things needed without much python code by leveraging gladeVCP widgets.
This screen only has a few things added that required python coding.

Not saying this is the screen you want but it is a proof of concept to designing a screen without a lot of python code.
I think button jogging widgets would complete basic functionality.

Chris M

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26 Aug 2013 01:47 #38084 by mariusl
Replied by mariusl on topic Touch Screen Design

Hi

Is it possible to run gmoccapy on beaglebone machinekit?


If you can get Axis to run I dont see why Gscreen will not run as it is much more resource friendly than Axis.

Regards
Marius


www.bluearccnc.com

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