EMC2 screen designer?

[XTCNC]

Hi, I have used Mach3 quite a bit in the past, but now would like to try out EMC and Linux.
I usually like to create custom screens for our machines.
My question is - how do I get started with designing screens for EMC - is there a screen designer program, or do I have to learn a Linux program like Python?
Where do I start?
Thanks in advance
Steve

[acondit]

There is no EMC2 screen editor as such. There has been a lot of work on using Glade widgets with "Axis" also pyvcp has a bunch of widgets the can be used in a custom panel. I don't know how much work has been done on replacing or customizing the whole "Axis" main panel.

Alan

[doug6949]

The closest thing to a screen designer for emc is pyvcp that Alan mentioned. It is much more limited than the mach screen designers in that you cannot build a screen from scratch.

IIRC, pyvcp only works with the default screen known as "axis." The good news is that axis is a good interface to begin with.

Basic configurations in emc are easier to create than in mach. It's mostly point and click. Anything outside of this requires a working knowledge of linux, C, Python, and the guts of emc itself. It is definitely not trivial.

Doug

[chester88]

It depends on how custom you want it.
EMC 2.5 which is supposed to come out soon but you can easily get now, has some more options.

gladeVCP is probably the way to go and yes you'll surely need to know python.
There has been work privately on a gladeVCP based screen that looks like AXIS, this would give the ground work to base something else on -we will have to wait to see if it's added to EMC base. But that doesn't stop you from trying it your self. With gladeVCP you can place the widgets where ever you like.

If you use TOUCHY in emc 2.5 you can change its look with GTK themes

LinuxCNC.org - Touchy interface with a modified blue-joy theme - EMC Support Forum

You can highly change the look of the screen with GTK themes but it can be a lot of work (Unless you just tweak someone else's theme, there are lots on the net) and you can't change the placement of widgets.

We are slowly getting there but it is not a priority with the core developers, they prefer that EMC works and has usable features.
But I gotta say it's pretty cool to be able to change the look.

[XTCNC]

Thanks a lot for your replies, I think a starting point will be to use touchy with GTK themes, and then tweak them to get a feel for Linux, is there any documentation on creating or tweaking themes - starting from the very basics?
Regards
Steve

[chester88]

Guide To Gtk Theme Creation
GnomeArt/Tutorials/GtkThemes - GNOME Live!

Sorry not really a basic guide... GTK.themes and theme engines are a big subject

[chester88]

The blue joy theme I modified for TOUCHY (I just changed the color of one button image ) uses the pixmap theme engine.
Pixmap engine replaces the stock images with whatever PNG image you like.