Re: EMC Change Suggestions

Bob Bachman wrote:

> One change I would like to see is a setup menu which can be accessed
> with the main program running. This would make tweaking the variables
> for max performance much easier. With EMC it is necessary to exit the
> program, load an editor, load the ini file, make changes, save the file,
> exit the editor, and then restart EMC. Very tedious when setting up a
> new machine.

If you are changing PID gains, etc. you can do this on the fly in the
Settings -> Calibration menu. The PID gains are saved and copied out to
the .ini file when the controller shuts down, so these are preserved.
Have you tried this? I did this when running a program that moved X from
0 to 2, for example, then brought up a logging window, logged the
following error, and increased the P gain while the program was running
and re-logged.

> Another feature to add would be an internal editor which would allow
> editing or correcting a gcode file, again without exiting the main program.

Under the File -> Edit menu, you can bring up a text widget and edit the
program. You can save your changes, and when you run again the new
program is executed.

> While redesigning the gui, try to make it more user friendly for those
> of us not using a mouse. A mouse in the shop environment is a not a
> good idea. I know the current version can be run with only a keyboard
> but only if you have a 'cheat sheet' pasted to the monitor to tell you
> which keys do what. It's a big screen, reduce the size of the axis readout
> a bit and increase the size of buttons to include which key to push to
> make them work.

That's a good idea. I'll have a cheat sheet that pops up with
keystrokes. This is buried in the help window, which brings up a bunch
of help. Somewhere down the file is the list of keystrokes.

--Fred