Alpha 17 feedback about iosender

[terjeio]

• Alpha status: I am perhaps a bit conservative regarding this, this since I know there is still a lot of work to do before I am comfortable to mark it as production ready. However, compared to some of the senders I have used for comparison and testing against grblHAL it is definitely not in alpha state... Anyway, I think more user feedback is required before I change the status.

• Open vs Load: File > Open is a common standard so it has to be Reopen then...

• Edit: The Edit function will automatically reopen/reload the program when the editor exits if the file was changed. The editor is configurable, but not yet from the UI - currently you have to edit the App.config file to change it. On todo list, reason not yet added has to do with reopen/reload on editor exit and editors supporting multiple files open in tabs. E.g. Notepad++ which I use.

• Camera move offset: A offset has to be set in Settings: App first. Here is a YouTube video showing how it is done with Mach3. Short version: drill a small hole and set zero, move the spindle till the camera is centered on the hole, select Settings: App, click Get current position in the Camera box and save settings. Then there is the issue of adjusting the camera to be paralell to the Z-axis...

• Remote camera: IMO not going to be a part of the sender, camera functionality is intended for optical probing and measurements - not for job monitoring.

• Com port selection: still chicken/egg situation as the sender configures itself from info retrieved from the grbl firmware. Slowly getting towards this beeing possible, the first step done by changing the app config class to a singleton... Not on top of my todo list I have to admit.

• Start, hold and stop buttons: I do not like the icons many uses... Pause = feed hold? Note that Stop behaves differently with grblHAL and legacy grbl. grblHAL: immediately halts execution and rewinds program, position may be lost (done by a soft reset - I have added a new real-time command for that). grbl: stops sending - motion continues until buffer is exhausted. IMO bad if agressive buffering is enabled, maybe why most senders avoid using that?.

Tsender is aimed at similar users as those who would use/uses Grbl-Panel, ref a quote from the grbl wiki about Grbl-Panel:

...a GUI that implements more advanced features and functionality commonly found in production machines...

Many thanks for the feedback.