> (a) Has anyone done any paper or "keyboard" designing along these lines? > If so does Flash feel a sensible or lunatic path?
you've described what in EMC lingo is called VCP, or a Visual (virtual?) Control Panel. It's all in development right now, but the idea is that using a simple ascii file you define what buttons, indicators, scrollbars, numbers etc. you want to see on your panel, and to which HAL pins or NML messages you want all the gui stuff to connect. Then you run the vcp script and the control panel comes up. there's a halui/vcp test panel that comes with the latest release: http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?Halui I've played around with a control panel for testing the m5i20 card: http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?M5i20_Halvcp_Test_Panel I might be wrong, but I think currently VCP uses GTK widgets to draw stuff to the screen, and I'm not sure how VCP links to HAL or NML. I've also played around with the Python module called 'emc'. Using this module it is possible to pretty much do everything VCP can do at the moment + you have access to a lot of NML commands and the emc status structure. I'm not sure how TkInter ranks against GTK in terms of available bells-and-whistles (widgets), but at least Python/TkInter is very portable. So, seeing as VCP development has been very slow lately, if someone skilled in python would put in some effort I am sure the idea of customizable control panels could be revived as pyVCP!? The only drawback with using Python would be that it is interpreted and thus a bit slower than compiled C code. Anders ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Emc-developers mailing list Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
