Alignment is one I have always wondered about. The functionality is there, it’s just non-obvious and non-intuitive.
Does any user in their right mind look at a 9 dot grid and some x-y coordinates and think, “Oh, that’s how I align things?” It took me forever to realize it was there and even longer to realize the dots were selectable and correspond to the center, corners and sides of the selection.
Did not know this. Thanks
you mean one without, a… ummm… cheat to make it work. it’s doable. but probably not recommended for most people.
I thought he meant just to pause, fix an issue (say, masking), and then close and resume, which is a fairly standard thing.
Yeah, that would be very handy.
Easier cleaning of the Pro exhaust fan is something GF should definitely do, although it’s unlikely to help current owners.
Better introduction to, well, almost everything for new users is mandatory if GF expects people not to be turned off by the discrepancy between their laughably superficial and optimistic “use it like a toaster” marketing and the reality of using the machine. Not to pick on GF marketing people. It’s pretty much all marketing people. Best used to weigh down lawyers and used car salespeople. Says me, an ex-marketer…
But my pet peeve is how often existing users have to tell new people how to save a file from the forum - seriously GF, it’s got to be the most common post by orders of magnitude in the entire community. Put a note at the top of every thread, or at least the ones in the Free Laser Designs. Do something. Life is too short to read “Right-click on… and save as…” 10 times in every thread.
And for the new users may I gently suggest that you actually read the whole thread before asking that question? Or any other. Thank you so very much!
Yes to all the OPs, do something.
At the very least OPs can type “right click and save as” in their original post, though that doesn’t apply to mobile users.
One note, the dots don’t actually align anything. They just control which set of numbers are displayed for x and y. You have to select what you want to align to, write down the x and y, then select the thing you want to align and enter in the numbers for the previous x and/or y.
As noted, not intuitive.
That’s a great post, hadn’t seen it before so thanks for pointing it out. That should be a sticky post.
I was remiss in not considering that more knowledgeable users could make it easier for new people by better constructing their file containing posts 
For the UI:
For general use:
A local server so I don’t have to use the cloud. I want to be able to use the laser even if the internet connection goes down.
Both doable with the 9 grid that @shogun mentions above - it would be nice if it were easier!
You can do this now - 3 button menu > Export Design
I’ll agree that aligning things in the user interface would be helpful for me.
Often times I’m cutting multiple copies of the same thing and I frequently end up moving them around to fit on different materials. It would be helpful to re-align them all.
But the most beneficial thing for me would be able to better organize/search past jobs.
I originally brought this up in this forum in Dec of 2018 and have brought it up several other times, trying to get the attention of Dan and the Glowforge team.
I think Glowforge would benefit from a voting system of proposed ideas, where items being considered for development can be voted on by the users, thereby giving Glowforge insight into what their customers really want.
They’re definitely working on that since:
didn’t exist a year ago.
They’re pretty aware of what their customers want, both those here and those who contact them via other means so I think voting would do nothing more than annoy those who “lose” the vote, and give unrealistic expectations to those who “win” that their thing will be real in a short period of time.
The universe gets the last vote. Some things could be done with a few lines of code, some are either/or that you can have one or another but not both. Still others might seem easy but in fact are very difficult considering the rest of the programming. Still others are contradictory or not happening in this universe. Your vote has no effect in those cases.
Yes, Glowforge implemented a way to sort based on the date of the file, but to me this should have been an add on feature to a proper file organization system. (ie, You’ve always been able to search or sort based on your project name, but now we’ve allowed you to sort based on date as well.)
The Glowforge Dashboard is a database of our projects.
Prior to Glowforge, I’ve never used a piece of software that has a database of values that cannot be sorted or searched. I challenge anyone to come up with a use case where not having file organization makes sense… or even exists in any other piece of software.
Searching and sorting based on filename, keywords, tags, or compartmentalization into folders and nesting folders, is paramount in organizing even a small data set.
Regularly parse through hundreds or thousands of projects looking for a specific project, and the software becomes frustrating to use. I know there are workarounds, but 3+ year old software shouldn’t be missing basics like this.
Sorry, my rant is directed towards Glowforge… not you deirdrebeth.
Hmm… I remember when telling people how to grab the SVG from the browser cache was enough to get you permabanned on these forums. Good times!
The export does not work on purchased designs. That conversation will still get you banned…
(off topic)
Palmercr got permabanned for doing it repeatedly after being warned and temporarily banned. (And probably other things, he was a treat to deal with)
If it wasn’t this it woulda been something else. That guy was always gonna get banned for something.
Good rule of thumb: don’t be a petulant jerkface and you won’t get banned.
(/off topic)
Oh hey!
Thank You!
Better Project Organization
I would like to have the ability to organize projects by folders and tags. I have to have multiple projects that are all related together because I need to cut more than the work surface/material can support.
Way to engrave round/cylindrical objects
Some other laser cutters have a device that rotates a cylinder to make it easy to engrave. I would love to be able to purchase an add-on like this.
Cheaper Premium
Honestly, it is just too expensive. It is a little more work, but I can do everything in Inkscape, find clip art online, etc. When I was using the premium trial, it made it simple, but the price it too high to justify. If it were a couple of bucks a month, I would have signed up right away.