>> Do you prefer Windows/PC based software, if so why?
Assuming your post here is about what most of us would call "Hobby Level" controls........
I used to... Back when we had the reliable run with XP and Win7, but Win10 has forced an entire developer world to re-work much of their developments or crawl back into deeper and deeper closed source offerings to pay for the amount of work they have to do.
Worse, Win10 has forced the little guy to continue to pay, pay and pay to keep in many cases, perfectly good working software, working just because Microsoft dictated the change especially regards Cad/Cam. That said, I still plot along just fine with XP and a well known Windows based controller, but surely the day will come and all that investment in what has worked and continues to work perfectly fine will be banished. I have explored and used LinuxCNC on two small machines and found it to be a perfectly fine development, but anyone who installs it does have to put in their share of legwork to really fine tune things. The small details like something as simple as I/O debounce settings had been non-existant visually by default... you literally had to jump thru hoops and hope like hell a kind person would spell it out for you in a forum somewhere.
I for the most part run a Linux Laptop these days for Cad/Cam, but unfortunately, the Cad/Cam world regards Linux Cad/Cam is extremely limited, clumsy, and often painful in comparison to Windows anything.
>> Do you customize the UI/panel for your setup?
I used to think that all machines had to have a control panel with a zillion buttons, lights and blinky things on it, whether you ever used the function or not. I've long since realized that those who create really, really good GUI interfaces such that 90+% of function can be easily handled by simple key entry or touch screen events, well, for them, its just a waste of time to bother. Too, if software developers consider the user ergonomics of repeatable events like that of probing edges and such, they can certainly create environments where the entire event is a one or two click automated event rather than strings of MDI commands manually entered.
There exists your gawd awful "traditional" controls, gawd awful looking hobby controls, and some actually very wonderful Windows control Gui's in the low budget markets if you look for them. The most basic of basic open source control market for grbl has some just plain awful gui front ends.... the only bright spot I found was in a front end called "Candle". Perfect ? No. Room for expansion and improvement ? Yes. Active developer ?.... crap.... No !
>> Do you use conversational dialogs, if so which dialogs do you use?
Seldom... only for the simplest of simple. Cad/Cam for me. Much of my work has been architectural engraving based... something no "conversational" tool is going to do.
>> Which additional feature would you like have in your current software?
Frankly, in my case, I rely on Flashcut. At this point, it has addressed practically anything and everything I would ever need for my personal machinery collection which includes Mill, Lathe, Plasma, Router and Engravers. I have retrofitted Flashcut to numerous machines both large and small over the years and have not really found anything it lacked as they were very active in constant feature development. If they only spent some time with a Linux version, I think that they would finally see why PathPilot has been such a hit.
I do not get far from any of my machines when they are running, so even sending me a text when finished is meaningless for me.
>> Would you be interested in controlling your machine from a tablet or smartphone?
Not every machine by any means, but there are smaller applications where a tablet would be nice. Best I can tell, there are a few who have explored and conquered for themselves exactly this in the grbl world. Details for newbies attempting the same are in similar territory to an initial exploration of LinuxCNC as there will be plenty of legwork, lots to read and question, and lots of failed attempts along the way. Regards Arduino and motion control in General, you migt as well conclude that you DO need to understand programming and have coding skills because there is little in anything other available than communication with grbl, tiny g or one of the plethora of other extremely low budget motion hardware devices that have tumbled across Asian borders.
But, yes, SOME machines make sense to have a much smaller, compact GUI or front end for operations.
>> Would you buy a subscription-based software?
Control specifically ? YUCK. Cad/Cam wise... tried once... seems it always turns out that the program is not worth even one installation payment, then they go broke, or sell out, or collapse completely. Waste of money. Add to that, every "Free for Hobbyist", "rechargable", "free yearly registration" offer has always collapsed over the years as well. I don't need to name names... the old timers here know exactly what I am talking about. Mark my words, the day will come when those who put all their eggs in the Fusion360 basket will be asked to pay up or vacate, and it's hard to say what intellectual data will be lost in the meantime.
I'm not sure why any business owner with a brain, who also has propriety design information would ever commit to trusting their developments with the continuously hacked "cloud".
>> Do you have machine setups that can't be easily configured with your current software (special machines, ...)?
Not really. But mine are quite traditional. Flashcut has swimmingly addressed them all.
For educational purposes and perhaps small machine applications, I recently did stop to look into and create test environments for grbl, just to see what all the fuss was about. It is interesting, and part of interesting happens to be that is is essentially FREE and perfect for that small machine environment. Good Gui's in my opinion are still severely lacking, but the motion aspect is strikingly well accomplished... limited in many ways... but well accomplished.
If there is one control that has caught my eye that I would love to play with yet, its EdingCNC. I believe they have a pretty smart looking Gui. Someday if I happen to have any spare $$ (which seems and endless battle with me), I would LOVE to try it and see what it is all about.