Decided I would start a thread with some ideas Ive thought of lately for the GF software after using it for a while.
Workspace:
a quick invert option for those times when you want to engrave on acrylic instead of wood. (Black -> white and white -> black)
a mirror option to reverse the image you are engraving. Very handy when engraving on transparent materials.
NUMERIC ENTRY. X, Y, scaling, rotation. Be able to always see these values and to change them.
align to the soft limits of the cutting area.
in the print dialog(while something is printing), show each step and how much time each one is, along with the settings, and how much time remains on that step.
(this goes with the last item) once a print has started, allow a user to set a stop point after a certain step in the process. Many times I start a cut/engrave/score etc only to realize I will have to stop it after the first step to make a change. So I have to stand and watch it waiting for the exact moment to open the lid. Being able to set a break point would be nice.
illustrator plugin and dxf support
primitive shape tools (polygon [n-gon], ellipse, star/gear mod for n-gon)
Designs Page
An Organizational system for files: folders, tagging, etc.
more file meta. (Date, size, number of times run, last date run, etc)
paging, sorting, tagging, searching of said files
a file download button for each of the designs you’ve uploaded. Sometimes you lose an original file or want to modify something on another computer, or even email it over to someone. (Obviously not for things from the catalog unless given permission)
A column in the design section (right side prefer.) that shows all the last jobs that were run with all the settings, positioning, scaling, etc. You can click on it to open up the job as it was before to run again. Very handy when your browser crashes or windows installs updates and reboots your computer overnight.
A versioning system that detects files that have the same name and keeps them all in the same place. Instead of having your design page littered with older versions of the same file, just have one icon that can expand if youd like to get to an older version. Any time you upload a file with the same file name it just adds it as a new version of that design.
a share button for designs. Give the option for number of times they can use it, whether they are allowed to download it or not, reshare, etc.
That’s all for now. Would love to hear if any of you have any additional ideas.
I would add a way to save the power/speed/focus metadata for a job so that you can use it on other jobs with the same materials. This even helps if you are running materials but want custom settings.
Ah that’s a good one. Named material settings. Maybe even allow the option for them to be tied specifically to a certain proofgrade material and any time it recognizes that material give you an option to choose that preset instead of having to hunt for it.
A great example of this is: I have to make changes every time I use the proofgrade setting for 1/4 acrylic as it defaults to two passes, but makes the cut in one pass and just causes flashback damage on the second pass. Sometimes I forget to change it and have to wait until the first pass finishes and hurriedly open the lid to stop the second pass!
more than that - given that they’re processing all your files, it should be pretty easy to rank and group similar files regardless of name. i havent seen the ui yet ofc, but i personally would love to be able to just group things in folders by project, too.
It would be cool to riff off of what you and @jkopel mentioned and have settings for different materials stored in the meta data for each job file, maybe up to 10 materials worth.
Going from the breakpoint idea, how about a generalized pause/back/ff facility? So if something interesting happens with the masking, you could roll back and redo from that point, or if you need to skip something for a particular cut…
There’s already the simulator, so this shouldn’t be that hard to implement except for the UI
materials but want custom settings.