I think you would have to ask smurph that one

I think you would have to ask smurph that one

He is aware of the effort to spruce up the Mach4 screens. I asked for image toggle buttons and got them within something like a week!

I'm not inclined to bother him unless I an stuck  . . .  dead in the water . .  and that is not the case.

All I really want at this point is to get the boxes out from around the toggle buttons, but that does not hold up creating new buttons, check boxes, radio buttons or other stuff.  They will just not look their best until the border goes away, so I am not motivated to work on them at this point, which is an ill wind because I am Uber busy and don't have time for it anyway, so removing the temptation is a good thing . . . 

I requested dual state LED's like mach3 uses about a year ago. This would let you do a lot of cool things.

Is the red/green dual state led going to work for you? 

I also requested more font options, but was told that they couldn't do it, because they someday will be making Mach4 cross platform, and couldn't support additional fonts. :-(

I'm not buying the cross platform reason, unless there is some Jurassic platform that I am unaware of that has a single font, but it might be worth playing around with renaming fonts as a 'trick' as can be done with the g-code editor.

Z Order brings items to the front, or sends them to the back, but it's quirky it seems.

This has not worked for me yet. Is there an example you can cite where this works?

I should have been more clear. What I was referring to was using images for LED's. But as I sit here looking at Mach4, it looks like I could use "images" as LEDs. I can swap images on the fly, and have them linked to LED's, correct? So that answers that question.

I found the post about the fonts here:
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,25952.msg182957.html#msg182957

It's an old post, but I still see only 5 fonts, so I guess that's all we get.
I can work around the 5 fonts with images, except for in DRO's.

Haven't played with screens in close to a year. Now that I think about it, I recall the Z order being very buggy. I may have reported it, but don't really remember.

 
Just a thought, (;-) TP

Just an update . THE WXSmith is used with Code::BLocks and Wx Widgets and WxFormBuilder BUT it does NOT output in LUA. It is only usefull IF you use the XRC method of screen building. THAT PART will work with LUA.

The Code:Block has a GREAT screen builder that is drop and drag and WYSIWYG .  BUT it does not output code in LUA (yet). It uses all the resources of all the screen building moduals to make it easy to create a GUI screen.

Hopefully we can get them to output in LUA .   It would not seem to be that hard BUT? (;-)

(;-) TP

I should have been more clear. What I was referring to was using images for LED's. But as I sit here looking at Mach4, it looks like I could use "images" as LEDs. I can swap images on the fly, and have them linked to LED's, correct? So that answers that question.

If I am decoding this correctly, the answer would be Definitely yes . . sort of  

It depends on which direction you want the link to 'go'. There are not scripts available IN the LED type, however, you can manipulate an LED with a script from another type.

ex; you can use the scripts behind an image toggle (which satisfies both your dual state and image requisites) to turn on an LED (or change color, make it dance around the screen, whatever)

In my view, while doable, the above would be redundant since you can create a 'smart' checkbox or radio button out of the image toggle. Examples of each are shown in the last video I posted here. I may have neglected to point out that the button and checkbox are image toggles.

I don't see much use for the LED's . . and they are ugly anyway . . unless they fix the anti-aliasing. It does not make sense to have a border around an image toggle, but that is probably fixable.
 

they are getting there there is improvement needed but all the basic features are there, we have free rain to do what ever we wont with M4 if you wont just post anything you wont to supply of what you have done if its a good thing to have they will added it.

there are others doing cool stuff with M4 what are giving over some stuff but showing what they can do or you can help as well, or they are sending it to Brian or they other development team the round team not squire team ( they know what I mean ) it all helps to get everyone what they wont in the end I only hope that M4 can kill linuxcnc what`s ok to use now but is harder to use than lua.

also just a thing that can be done macro b can be used to do some of what is missing at this time some not all yet

Just an update . THE WXSmith is used with Code::BLocks and Wx Widgets and WxFormBuilder BUT it does NOT output in LUA. It is only usefull IF you use the XRC method of screen building. THAT PART will work with LUA.

The Code:Block has a GREAT screen builder that is drop and drag and WYSIWYG .  BUT it does not output code in LUA (yet). It uses all the resources of all the screen building moduals to make it easy to create a GUI screen.

Hopefully we can get them to output in LUA .   It would not seem to be that hard BUT? (;-)

(;-) TP

Terry,

All of these GUI tools are great for making stand alone screens, but can they tie into the MACH4 screens?

Dredging data from MACH4 and displaying it on a nice screen in convenient for maintenance and setup, but those are utility functions.

My interest in in operational functionality and unless I am missing something (which is quite possible since I am just starting to dig into this stuff), that has to be done on the MACH4 screens.

Ultimately, what I would like to have is a mechanism by which a graphic could be made and integrated or overlaid on the MACH screen and hooked into the data. Maybe that is doable with one of the tools you have mentioned. I have not had time to look at them yet, although I have some ideas for work-arounds if there are not specific tools available.

In any case, I don't think I am anywhere near exhausting the tools provided by MACH. The graphics handler supports alpha channels, so that opens a barn door of possibilities. I just don't have much time available to play with the stuff at this point. I came back to the forum to get my controller ported over to MACH4 and that's done. There are lots of other torches at the castle gate. 

What I meant was have the images change state based on the state of the LED's. I don't need to manipulate the LED's, just read their state and swap the images accordingly. So the image would be (or mimic)  the LED.

I don't have Mach4 in fornt of me, but is there a border style option of "none"?