That’s what I’ve been running for these past few months, and I can highly recommend it. I’ve got the Pi in a case with the official 7" touchscreen, running Webcontrol.
I can upload my files into the Pi from inside the house and keep my laptop in a sawdust-free environment. Then I just carry a tablet into the garage/shop to move the sled around to the starting position and kick off the cut from there.
The Pi stays on the webcontrol screen with the STOP button available when I need it.
THIS! This is what I was trying to do all along. My computer is in another room from the Maslow, but keeping it in sight at all times. I’ll have to get a photo of my setup this weekend.
I don’t have internet at all in my shop. That’s the only reason I never thought about the WebControl, but finding out it doesn’t need it to run, I’m definitely leaning more towards it. I have a lil’ 7" LCD for my RPi as well.
Is there a preconfigured image? Or do I have to put it all together?
I had to put it all together, but it wasn’t too onerous back in May.
My process went along the lines of
(with a lot of false starts with GC and faffing around)
Unfortunately, I’ve followed the rule of “Get it to work and then NEVER HIT THE UPGRADE BUTTON” so I’m now a few versions behind on everything. 
You and me both! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! haha
There is an older image available (a few months, ancient at this pace of
development 
)
it’s docker based, but does work (I just updated the image I have that way)
there is work being done on a new image, and this will include a lot more
fucntionality, including the ability to be an AP so that you don’t need a
keyboard/mouse/monitor attached to the pi to configure it.
I’m sure there will be announcements, and probably a new topic thread when this
image is completed.
David Lang
Maybe better to say “if this image is completed.”. It’s been nothing short of a nightmare… trying my 5th machine to build on… ordered a new sd to see if I can build it on a rpi rather than Linux box.
I’m no genius with the Pi by any means, and Linux is really completely lost on me… But, on the Pi, for my retropie builds, once you get it all configured, you can just make an image of the SD, and it becomes it’s own image, just format, install image on sd, and bam, just like you left it.
Is it not like that for what you’re trying to do?
There’s a mechanism to build images for the Pi’s:
However, I’m pretty much lost trying to figure it out and considering how long it takes to build at about 2 hours (I did successfully build using a 32-bit ubuntu image), my typical shotgun approach to programming is going to take too long.
I think the process you described works only when you are using identical hardware… So, and I could be wrong, if I build an image for a 3B+, it won’t work on a 4. I think that’s the advantage of the method I was trying to implement. But since I’m failing at that, I might just try how you suggest and only worry about 3B+ and zeros.
Oh that makes a lot of sense, I didn’t know that it was hardware specific. But now that you mention it, I do now remember when I download my RetroPie images, you have to choose which Pi you have. Carry on, you’re doing a fantastic job, don’t listen to me. LOL I’m full of bad ideas, and horrible advice 
Nah, it’s a good idea. It might be the only way I can get an image made. I think the pi-gen thing is beyond me.
if you can get it to work on your machine and then get me the list of what you
did, I will work on making a generic image
David Lang
Thanks! Even though I have to document what I do. I’ve got a new SD card in the mail today, so will work on a fresh install.
I found this that may make life a lot easier:
If I can bake it all into webcontrol, then really the only thing needed to do is find a way to include webcontrol in the image and add a little script to start it upon boot.
If you need someone to test anything, let me know. I have a 3b+ kit laying around not being used, and plenty of SD cards I can load things up on when you get images to test.
Here’s the pi-gen script code I used to generate the original image https://github.com/johnboiles/pi-gen/tree/webmcp
I have some friends who are working on an integrated raspberry pi + screen:
I’ve been talking to them about building a dedicated Maslow controller which would incorporate a screen along with hardware buttons for actions like E-Stop, Pause, Run and Jogging to position. Do we think WebControl could be the right choice for building something like this?
The platform is basically a Pi Compute module which we can integrate hardware with. The development team is interested in what we are making and they’re available to help.
very much yes. It will be far easier to do this with WebControl than with
GroundControl, especially as they are already doing a web based UI.
David Lang
There’s a lot of good in webcontrol and some bad. I’m sure there were/are better ways to do some of the things I did. Nevertheless, it works and would save someone a lot of time than starting from scratch.
A LOT of time because you’ve done a lot of fantastic work. I’ll have a crack at it and see what I can figure out as soon as there is prototype hardware available.
start with a regular Pi and browser.
we’ve talked a little about how we could use the GPIOs for indicator lights and
buttons, that will work on any Pi.
David Lang