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Enhancement. Would be nice to have more friendly 'Jog' panel #27

Closed GoogleCodeExporter closed 9 years ago

GoogleCodeExporter commented 9 years ago 
Excellent design, but instead of the pulldown menu & spinner box for moving 
motors, it would be helpful if there were dedicated buttons for each axis. 

The Makerbot ReplicatorG software has an excellent interface for jogging:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/makerbot/4562941397/

The arrow keys allow you to jog in any direction, and the selectable step size 
is handy too. Perhaps a custom step option would also be useful.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by The.Mech...@gmail.com on 13 Oct 2010 at 5:00

GoogleCodeExporter commented 9 years ago 
Yes, that would be nice.    Unfortunately, it is not presently possible to do 
this from within an Inkscape extension.

There is a *very* long story behind this, and we've put more time into this 
very problem than you would possibly imagine.   I will not to go into detail 
about this, but there are a few things that I can point out.

0) Yes, we have thought of it. :)

1) An Inkscape extension only executes its code when you either select it from 
the extensions menu or, if it has options, when you click the "Apply" button.  
There is no concept of a button, and even if there were, no way to execute code 
should that button be pressed. 

2) This feature was considered essential at one point.  That lead to a long 
period of development of eggbot control software based on wxpython.  This was a 
separate application from Inkscape, launched by Eggbot extension.  (You could 
launch MS Word the same way, but it would also not really be an Inkscape 
extension.)  While the "wx" version did have real-time control with buttons, it 
had significant cross-platform compatibility issues.  There were also some 
user-interaction challenges-- for example explaining why three separate 
programs show up in the windows taskbar when you select "Eggbot" from within 
Inkscape.    The person who had initially written the wx version also left the 
project, leaving the whole thing in our hands.  

3) After struggling with it for a few weeks, we made a choice to essentially 
start over on the software, rather than abandoning the Eggbot project 
altogether.  It's admittedly a compromise position, but in our defense (A) 
There *are* eggbot kits now-- there wouldn't be if we had insisted on buttons 
--,  (B) it actually works, and (C) it actually works fairly well, with the 
exception of having to use the pop-up menu.

4) For nudges in one direction, you can select a small number and hit return 
over and over to make small jogs.

5) There wasn't already a good, free program for 3D printing, which is why they 
built ReplicatorG.   For 2D vector graphics, Inkscape is an incredible app that 
already exists, and it's awesome that we get to work within it.  It would be 
silly and likely counterproductive to try and fork Inkscape (or to write our 
own vector art software from scratch) just to produce a version that could 
support buttons.    The fact that Inkscape is so extensible is fantastic in 
many ways beyond just being able to plot-- just look at the other 
eggbot-related extensions that we've written.

6) The wx-python fork is still around in our download section, if you want to 
try and resuscitate it.

7) If you would like to lobby Inkscape to support alternate GUI methods for 
extensions, or even write the code yourself, you'll have my full backing and 
I'll be happy to help modify our extensions to support buttons.

8) We plan to eventually support plotting to Eggbot through other software 
interfaces, for example Processing.  (But, for the majority of the things that 
people want to do, Inkscape provides a very good interface to open and 
manipulate shapes.)

Original comment by windell@oskay.net on 13 Oct 2010 at 6:12