Problem 8: Keypad

[MausRundung]

Moving on to the right side: I wanted to share this early in the concepting phase, as going through iterations here is time-consuming and, frankly, nerve-wracking. I believe the addition of color really helps with navigating the button pad and makes it more intuitive for new users (obviously, these icons are just placeholders).

The only thing currently not fitting into the redesign are the Offsets. I’m not sure how big of a loss that is, as they are usually configured once and rarely touched; I think they would be fine located strictly within the hardware settings.

Rough Concept:

Current:

Since we have already discussed the issue of "top bar bloat," the idea is to remove a few items from that area, thereby decluttering the interface and improving the clarity of the available control options.

Elements no longer needed in the top bar: (Excluding "Alarm unlock," which should remain.)

[MausRundung]

Updated: (Was in the Discord Convo Before)

[knipknap]

Also copying the main points from Discord:

• Click canvas to zero needs to be added
• The Adw dropdown won't have the same height as the buttons, and I want to avoid implementing a custom drop down.
• We have to account for longer WCS names. Ruida uses MACHINE, REF1, REF2.
• We have to account for freely definable WCS labels introduced with Rayforge 1.4 I think.
• In general I want to avoid implementing non-standard features like custom font sizes and custom colors as it can interfere with theme responsibilities, though at least with regards to font sizes I think some exceptions can be made.

Also, not yet discussed: I expect we will need additional functionality in that area, such as the one described in #225 and then for CO2 lasers (#14). So this means what is needed are controls for:

• Laser on/off
• Laser power
• Power timeout
• Laser frequency
• Laser pulse width

If we are redesigning this area anyway it makes sense to account for those features.

[knipknap]

I just added all these extra controls, so the problem is now worse - just did not have a good idea for how to make it better yet.

[MausRundung]

The issue with these settings is that they are largely redundant in the control panel. Because it is practically impossible to manually operate a laser, and such parameters are typically defined per worklayer, there is little to none benefit to having them available in the hardware controls.

[MausRundung]

The Adw dropdown won't have the same height as the buttons, and I want to avoid implementing a custom dropdown.

This is possible without a custom system using AdwComboRow or GtkListBoxRow.

Click canvas to zero needs to be added

My idea would be to merge the Send and Pause buttons. Since you can only pause a laser if it already has a task anyway, why not indicate that it's performing a task by making the Send button become the Pause button while a task is active?

We have to account for freely definable WCS labels introduced with Rayforge 1.4, I think.

For this, I don't really have an out-of-the-box solution, other than the fact that it's an extremely high-end feature. As far as I know, it currently works on a per-layer basis anyway, so depending on the layer that is selected, you can change the WCS for just that layer.

In general, I want to avoid implementing non-standard features like custom font sizes and custom colors as it can interfere with theme responsibilities, though at least with regards to font sizes, I think some exceptions can be made.

The solution here is easy: just don't. 90% of this layout works with default GTK components. The things that do not-like the X, Y, and Z in the coordinate display-can just be icons like the rest of the icons. That way, we don't have to worry about it, and they remain easily changeable and themeable.