User Interface Improvements - What are your favorite buttons?

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Hello Everyone, I’m trying to gauge which buttons are the most useful so that we can make them more prominent and reduce the number of clicks to get there. Use the poll below to let me know the buttons you think need to be more accessible. If I missed any of your favorites, add a comment!

  • X-Y jogging arrows
  • Return to home
  • Set X-Y movement distance
  • Define X-Y home
  • Z up and down
  • Set Z movement distance
  • Define Z home
  • Zero Z
  • Setup
  • Retract All/Extend All
  • Add tension/release tension
  • Upload GCode
  • GCode file bar
  • Pause/play/stop
  • Alarm/Idle/Hold
0 voters
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Voted, but I think this really depends on the context. If I’m getting the maslow mounted/ready then I want those appropriate buttons, and if not I don’t really need them, but just the job controls buttons (jog, etc) and I’d really like to be able to set.

I have a branch out there with a “wizard” for the former process in its own tab (see PR open on the ui project if anyone wants to try it, I also have a release on my github for it -see m4-ui tag for topic).

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Very true. This question really originated because I found myself messing with the Z axis a lot more than I thought and wishing the controls were on the main panel. I thought others may have different ideas too

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4

Anna Thomas wrote:

Very true. This question really originated because I found myself messing with
the Z axis a lot more than I thought and wishing the controls were on the main
panel. I thought others may have different ideas too

It’s common to have the Z jogging available on the main screen. In our case,
having the Z=bit zero and Z=machine zero on the main screen may be worthwhile

David Lang

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5

Here’s how I’ve been thinking about this. Mobile-first isn’t always my first choice, but in this case has been helpful to have screen size constraints to break the problem down.

So far I’ve come up with these groupings:

Configure:
Frame Size (Width, Height)
Calibration Grid Size (Width, Height)
Calibration Grid Size (Sample Points)
Motor Settings (retraction, calibration force).
Units - might be single default, or multiple options (jog, frame size, calibration size, etc.)

Move:
X, Y jog arrows
Move to home
Define Home (x,y)
Z jog arrows / UI
Define Z Home
Jog Amount (X,Y)
Jog Amount Z
(other functions I’d like to see here would be things like trace without Z, move to / “show” corners and or extents of g-code)

Prepare/Load:
Retract All / Extend All
Apply Tension / release tension
Upload file
Choose File

Cut:
start/stop/pause/alarm

I think all of these benefit from having some sort of preview associated.
I think you could group some of them together differently - like prepare and cut, etc.
I suppose file management could be its own thing. It’s choose a file from a list of stored files, upload a new file, or manage files.

I think the preview area is a natural place to have the load file button(s). If no g-code is loaded, put a “Load File” button in the middle of the window. pressing it brings up the option to choose a local file, or upload a new one. If a file is loaded, its name is shown at the top of the preview area, with a load file button next to it, etc.

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