Saving your custom material settings:
I’m on week2 now, and my biggest pain point with the Forge is not being able to save custom settings.
But I’ve figured out a way to solve this (not elegant, but works )
Step1:Create your unique material description in any text editor
Step2: Upload to interface
Step3: Create a cut/ score / engrave settings for this material
Step4: Change all of those to ignore
Now you’re done.
Upload what you really want to print. Voila! Now you have your custom material setting.
But @dan this is an easy thing to add. I know there are some reasons for this, but this is my one major pain point because I won’t only cut proofgrade due to my needs.
I thought this should also be its own category, but I can’t create one for some reason. Someone that has this ability, please move this to a material settings thread.
Thanks, Edson
Even after almost a year I don’t have a lot of experience with Trace functions or Adding Artwork without creating a custom design file. Almost everything I do is a custom file that resides on my computer. If I intend to use different materials I have a version of that file that is named appropriately. For example: Dog_PG Maple, Dog Baltic Birch, Dog Cherry 125, etc. The Autosave option will save the settings for each of those uploaded files.
I don’t trust external S/W to remain static on the cloud side so I also keep a spreadsheet with my settings.
That’s a good point. The text should be able to take care of that.
I also am rapidly moving to all “custom” stuff, except acrylic. This is the best material to work with, as long as you’re using svg files
I’ve been running fast a furious since two days ago, assuming that the GFUI was saving settings. Slowing down long enough to do a spreadsheet makes a lot of sense. I did write on the back of the fails, so that I know what a fail looks like and not to use those settings again.
Here’s my geeky solution to this problem. I just spent some time learning how to use AHK (autohotkey) and you can do something called “hotstrings autoreplace”. Basically I can type in text and have it replaced with other text.
For example, I type in “cb_e_s” (standing for cardboard engrave speed) and it will replace with 50. I do this for every setting and now I can just type those abbreviations into the browser navigation bar and it will autoreplace with the correct value.
Not sure if this made sense, for anyone familiar with autohotkey this is what it ends up looking like:
; cardboard
::cb_t::.14 ; thickness
::cb_e_s::50 ; engrave speed
::cb_e_p::1000 ; engrave power
::cb_c_s::350 ; cut speed
::cb_c_p::100 ; cut power
::cb_s_s::500 ; score speed
:*:cb_s_p::30 ; score power
Have you tried the Glowforge Material Manager plug-in for Chrome? You can just type the settings in, name it whatever you’d like, and it becomes available in your Forge interface for selection.
Cool!
I didn’t realize the plug-in existed until I saw this thread. I have been using the Apple Notes app to keep a list of my settings, but it’s much nicer to have them right in the browser. Thanx.
I didn’t realize that until recently… I haven’t had my glowforge for long. Purchased it used from someone in town. But I appreciate you reaching out to let me know!
How do you save settings? Most of the time when I go back even a day later to a customer.setting design, it asks me.to.enter settings for all elements again
Oh man, saving settings been there for a long time too! Better late than never though and at least you can ditch the notebook lol. Color coding, folders and “select all” is the top of my dream list.
)
Oh man, saving settings been there for a long time too! Better late than never though and at least you can ditch the notebook lol. Color coding, folders and “select all” is the top of my dream list.