Hide custom mappings, default to color mapping

[peteruithoven]

So this might be a controversial one, but I would like to at lease see the opinions on it.

99% of the lasercutting visitors in my Fablab and me as a slightly more advances user lasercut only designs that we have created ourselves. An easy, very visual distinctive method of determine parts that need different treatments by the lasercutter is color. But I'm also biased because our biggest lasercutter is controlled user Coral Draw and RLaser Cut, which only works with color mappings. I also have to mention that around 50% of these visitors only do one treatment, like only cutting.

My proposal is to hide all custom mappings preferences until a checkbox "custom mapping" is enabled. This checkbox could be in the main screen or in a preferences window. Default the mapping starts with listing the found colors, both fill and border. This is how that looks at the moment: I would also merge fill and border, this means that when a shape with a fill and border can get two treatments. When no profile is selected just yet I would start with not selected or cut.

This is a part of my overall issues with the focus of Visicut at the moment: https://github.com/t-oster/VisiCut/issues/68

[t-oster]

1. Fill and border are already merged in the property "Color"
2. We had a distinction between simple and advanced mappings in earlier versions, but it confused the users more, than it was useful
3. Color mapping seems to be the default on many laser-software, originating from CAD traditions. However in my opinion it is not any more natural than e.g. a layer-based mapping. Also it prevents you from using engrave on vector-graphics properly, because colors used for other mappings would be filtered. And the user might not know the difference between raster and vector graphics, and might think a blue line in a bitmap graphic would be cut.

However I agree that it may be useful, to hide the advanced-mapping-panel with a checkbox... This would still enable you to create the mapping you proposed and save it as pre-defined one.

[peteruithoven]

I wouldn't favor layers personally. It's not visual, a lot of users don't actually use layers and layers are defined differently in different file formats. Even Inkscape and Illustrator store layer information differently.

I agree that this disables engraving vector colors. (because colors used for other mappings would be filtered) but I really think this is an edge case.

I actually think that a bitmap should show up in the color list, but as None. (Bitmap would be clearer for the user but I think that conflicts with the logic of your program)

[t-oster]

Well... it currently appears as "Type->Bitmap", but I think adding also to color could work....

[t-oster]

Does this suffice your needs? I know the panel could be shrinked when the custom-mapping-panel is hidden, but that breaks auto-resizing... as far as I tried.

[peteruithoven]

You picked a slightly different solution, but I think that that's just apart of a bigger workflow discussion (see issue #72 ). This already removes a lot of ui while still retaining more advances features, so great!

And maybe we can't unify the two workflows and "my" needs require a different application, something like I roughly designed here: redmine.laoslaser.org/boards/3/topics/254

[t-oster]

Well.... with VisiCut being open source and LibLaserCut also, you should have the tools and knowledge on hand to create your specialized solution. However, if you can reach your goals by some minor changes to VisiCut's UI without removing used features, it is may be better to stick to one application.

Talking about usability: Did you already check the Camera features: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VaI8r-8oNw

And I think we need much more Documentation (#37). If you have the resources, please help enhancing the Wiki and may-be create such Youtube videos for the most common workflows.

[peteruithoven]

Camera feature seems really great, I was actually enthusiastic about if from the beginning. It might be the new "killer feature" for Visicut ;)

[t-oster]

well... it was planned from the beginning.... but now it starts to become real fun. So do you need help on a setup or do you have a working version?

[peteruithoven]

I don't have anything yet I'm afraid and I have 4 other very practical projects for the Fablab that I want to do first. Making sure Visicut and Cura runs on all computers, improving a basic fablab information sheet, perform last tweaks on big fablab photos display and hacking our big lasercutter so it can be switched between closed source and opensource hardware and software. Hard work at a bottom up Fablab ;)

You might like our photo display "trick" for your fablab: http://galleryproject.org/node/110773 https://github.com/peteruithoven/live-gallery Works great on a display and a Raspberry PI.

[mgmax]

peteruithoven: I think you are missing some important cases: There are many cases that are impossible (or difficult) with the simple "color mapping" that even the everyday user wants:

• Images
• Gradients
• many items filled with different colors (for making some kind of image, e.g. a flower with leaves of different "color")

I would be mostly happy with color-mappings, if it had two additional features:

• a selection for "Everything else"
• a mapping for "ignore this color"

Predefined mappings are actually easier to explain for first-time users: "Use red for cutting, blue for comments, everything else for engraving". I think it's a lot easier than telling them "choose three differerent colors. Use color 1 for cutting, ... and so on. Then in VisiCut select color 1 for "cut", ... and so on.".