Hi Chris,
It's even simpler than that. Free XML editors are all over the place. Even
on Windows. The application should know ahead of time which parameters like
"DIRSETUP" are required.
So a form or series of forms for all these parameters that do range
checking. And what's really cool, if you hover the mouse over the field you
get a "hint" that says "Time in nano-seconds required for the DIR signal to
be recognized by external hardware".
Click into the field and hit F1 and get a full paragraph explanation with
examples.
When you click CANCEL on the form, all the parameters (which are copies of
the original) are discarded. If you click SAVE, the parameters are verified
and copied into the original values and a call is done to update the XML
file.
If you don't want to use the form, then load the XML editor and the file and
tab down and change the values directly. Not sure why you'd want to but
it's possible. Especially if some sort of code upgrade doesn't update the
user interface. But a code upgrade of parameters in something as
fundamental as an ini file should generate updated forms.
This isn't rocket science since I've been writing software like that for
users for more than 25 years. Probably longer but I don't want to do the
math.
The copout for Linux has always been that in depth user manuals etc. aren't
needed because you can just read the source code. Of course often that
source code is commented like this:
localInt = 5; // Put 5 into localInt.
Duh!
The Xylotex.ini file is just another of the many examples of incomplete or
simply incorrect information that requires far more than what is required
for a system designed for users.
I apologize. I've once again allowed myself to get pulled into this world
and started complaining. I'm probably bringing my work frustrations to the
forum because I've got a junior Mechanical Engineer In Training who's been
able to convince management that he's perfectly capable of setting up a
complete source code control system for a micro processor not supported by
Microsoft Visual Studio and once done he can check out files, make changes
and recompile. Apparently 10 years ago in school he took a couple of
software courses. The questions I get are mind boggling.
John
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Albertson [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: October-12-17 4:31 PM
> To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC)
> Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Path Pilot on LinuxCNC -- Was MachineKit on the
> BeagleBone Black
>
> On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 3:17 PM, John Dammeyer <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> > > I would much prefer to edit a well thought out and documented config
file
> > > than use pretty much any Grunt n' Click interface.
> > > People who come from Win and OSX are not used to that, so it seems
crude
> > to
> >
> > # This gives a maxvel of 12.5/1 = 12.5 ips
> > #
> > # these are in nanoseconds
> > DIRSETUP = 1000
> > DIRHOLD = 20000
> > STEPLEN = 500
> > STEPSPACE = 4000
> >
>
>
>
> Agree. Yes the above is a perfect example of the worst possible
> user interface design I can't see any place there the four parameter
names
> are described. And there is zero enforcement of any rules or even basic
> sanity checking.
>
> At the very least this could have been implemented with an HTML form
> where clicking on the parameter name brings up a pop-up wit the
parameter's
> definition
> and clicking on the value allows either direct entry or a calculator.
> Then a validation is run to see that all values are valid and
> self-consistant.
>
> The text editor allows the user to do things like
> DIRSETUP = 1w4r
> Which is just about the poorest user interface design possible as it fails
> to
> catch even basic syntactical errors until AFTER the user has canceled out
> of the
> form. Seriously, who ould design an interface that tell you about
simple
> typo only AFTER closing out the screen where you enter the data?
> A reasonable design would at least catch an obvious error when the user
> clicks "submit" or "save" A better design would not allow bad data to be
> entered.
>
> Curent bast practice is to inform the use as soon as it is logically
> possible.
>
> Point is you do NOT have to give up flexibility for correct and modern
> design
> you can have both and all it takes is a simple HTML form and some
> javascript.
> Of it you don't like that Java/Swing or whatever.
>
> A correctly design interface would allow exactly the same amount of
> flexibility
> but would also provide information about what neds to be entered, have
links
> to a reference text and then validate the user's entry.
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Chris Albertson
> Redondo Beach, California
>
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