Improve plate management

[julie777]

Is there an existing issue for this feature request?

• [X] I have searched the existing issues

Is your feature request related to a problem?

Managing a project with many plates is awkward and inefficient.

Which printers will be beneficial to this feature?

All

Describe the solution you'd like

1. When an object is added to an empty plate, use the object name for the plate name. This gives each plate a name without extra work by the user. Plate names are very useful when printing, especially when using the list of files on the printer. In addition having plates named would make managing the plate list in preview much easier.
2. in preview, show both the plate number and the plate name. The plate number is not very useful for the user when looking through a long list of plates.
3. Allow re-arranging plates/renumbering plates. I frequently have multiple plates in a project and when I add a new plate I want to place it in the proper position. Imagine that I have a project with 10 plates, each with an object that has been resized to different size. Later I need to add a new size that was not needed before. Maybe I want to add 15 between 10 and 20. Currently, if I want the plates to be in the correct order/position (which makes it easy for me to find and print) I must move objects to other plates and rename the plats. (Essentially a list insertion with all the steps done manually by the user.)

Describe alternatives you've considered

No response

Additional context

No response

[julie777]

I just upgraded to 2.1.1 and noticed that there is now a "move plate to front" button on the plate. Although this does allow reordering plates, it is not very functional. I have a project with 36 plates. In order to put them in the desired order I will have to:

• decide which one should be last and then move it to the front.
• decide which one should be next to last and then move that one to the front
• etc. This is not very helpful.

Possible ways to allow reordering:

1. in the prepare tab under objects, allow drag and drop to reorder plates
2. in preview, allow drag and drop in the plate list. A simple drag to the correct position would be easy, both to do and to visualize.
3. add a plate list to the preview tab and allow drag and drop there.

My preference is to allow all three ways of reordering plates.

In addition, one new feature I forgot to mention in the original issue that would improve the working environment in the prepare tab - provide the plate list (like preview has) and allow selecting/deselecting plates in the list to choose which plates to show on the canvas. This would allow working with only one plate, or a small number of plates at a time. When a project has many plates the canvas is so cluttered it is hard to work with and I end up zooming all the time.

As you can see in the below image, I cannot read the plate names in order to find the plate that I want to work with. Instead I am constantly zooming in and out and panning to find the desired plate.

If I had a sidebar plate list like preview it would be easy to find the plate. If the sidebar list had the option to show only the plate name instead of a thumbnail the list would take up less room and be even easier to work with.

(Just my two cents to try and help Orca Slicer to become even better.)

[Azio-Pantheon]

I just upgraded to 2.1.1 and noticed that there is now a "move plate to front" button on the plate. Although this does allow reordering plates, it is not very functional.

Yeah I agree it's hard to use if you have lots of plates. My goal was to give users the ability to change plate order with the least development effort.(rather than nothing at all) I was also considering, instead of a "move_to_top," you get a popup that lets you type in the position you want the plate to be in. I might still try to implement this once I am more familiar with Orca's code base.

Of course, drag and drop is the most ideal solution, but I dont think I will ever go that far for plate management.