Button Assignment Possibilities?

[rachael7]

Love this Cura plugin! Thank you! Do you have a list of the valid values for button assignments? Are there any others besides resetview and toggleview? Thanks!

[smartavionics]

Hi, thanks, glad you like it.

No, there isn't any other button assignments implemented at the moment. If you think of some Cura function that you would like to be assigned to a button let me know and I can try to implement that.

[rachael7]

I definitely like it a lot - makes it so much easier to have uniformity of controls between my Solidworks and Cura installations!

I appreciate the work you've put in on it, so I don't want to sound ungrateful; but since you asked, here are a few functions that people might want to put on the buttons. I don't know if any of them are possible, so it's just a wishlist, with no expectations.

• Fit view to screen. (keep current orientation but zoom to fit on screen)
• Select view. (besides the isometric, people might want to put another view on a button, like front or side)
• Orient normal-to. Solidworks has a function where it automatically rotates the model so the view is normal to the selected face. No idea if it could be implemented in Cura, but I use that function heavily in SW.
• Change preview layer. (like what you implemented with the shift and alt combinations with movy, but using the buttons instead, so up one layer for one button and down one layer on another button. That makes it one-handed, which I prefer)
• Change preview mode between Material, Line Type, Speed, and Layer thickness. Cycling through with each button press would be awesome.
• Toggle between layer view and x-ray view
• Toggle between perspective and orthographic views

Those are the ones that come to mind related to viewing, which is all I put on my Spacemouse, and I have them listed in the order that I personally would want them. I can imagine a few others that people might use if they wanted to go beyond view control:

• Cura preferences
• Slice
• Save
• Undo
• Arrange all models

Again, I have no idea if all (or any) of these are feasible to implement, I have no idea how difficult they would be to implement, and I'm immensely grateful just to have the plugin as is, so if you ignore this completely, I wouldn't be the slightest bit put out. But if you're looking for ideas to play with, there you go :-). Thanks again!

[smartavionics]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look into implementing what I can. Stay tuned...

[smartavionics]

I've implemented some of the easier suggestions. There are now button functions to select perspective or orthographic view modes, change the color scheme and move the layer slider knobs. The README.md file now explains the button functions a little and also the sample config file has some more definitions.

I haven't made a release yet but the master branch contains the new stuff. Hope you can try that out, if not I will make a release.

All feedback is welcome.

[rachael7]

Wow, that was fast! Thank you! All the ones you've done so far seem to work exactly as expected. No issues here. Do you have a donation thing set up? Can I buy you a coffee or something?

[smartavionics]

Hi, glad you like the new functions. I have added another, centerobj, which moves the camera so that the currently selected object is centered on the screen. It doesn't attempt to set the zoom and I don't know how to go about doing that.

I think this new function is nice so I may make it the new default for button 1 as the 3d view reset isn't that useful.

No, I don't have a donation thing set up, I do this for fun!

[rachael7]

Oooo, that does sound like a good one! Thank you! If you ever decide to set up a coffee fund, let me know - I appreciate your efforts!

[rachael7]

Do you need to have an object selected for centerobj to work? If you have nothing selected, does it center the machine or do nothing?

[smartavionics]

If you have nothing selected it will centre the first object it can find (typically the first object you load onto the build plate). If there's no objects it does nothing.

[rachael7]

Perfect! Thanks again!

[smartavionics]

I've added a fit object to view capability to the centreobj function. To enable that, you need to change the value passed from 1 to 1.0. That parameter adjusts the amount of "zoom" so increasing the value will make the objects larger. The amount of zoom is based on the largest dimension of the selected object so it may be sub-optimal for long thin objects but I think it works well enough.

[rachael7]

That works a treat, thank you! Sometimes it seems to change the view angle as well, particularly if you're looking up from under the build plate, but even with that, it's a great option. Will definitely be on one of my buttons at all times. Great work!