When I’m working with a new material, I always want to test a variety of power and speed settings to see what works best. This is usually done in a grid of small squares to save on material.
What is the expected workflow for such a project?
If I make a bunch of squares of the same color, they won’t ungroup in the software, so I can’t set individual settings on each.
If I give each square a different color (ugh), their material settings appear in seemingly random order, and keeping track of which one has which settings is a huge pain. For example, I can’t click on a shape to access its settings: I need to hover each materials setting entry to see which shape is highlighted and thus which shape is affected.
This seems like a very common use case. Am I missing something?
Some solutions would be:
Grouping / ungrouping functionality for shapes
Support setting speed/power in SVG metadata
Click a shape, scroll to / highlight its materials settings
Enable changing settings for multiple shapes at once, e.g. select 3 shapes, give them the same settings, then select individual shapes to refine different speed settings
Color-coded speed/power settings like RDWorks (can’t believe I’m asking for something from RDWorks)
If I make a bunch of squares of the same color, they won’t ungroup in the software, so I can’t set individual settings on each.
True, by design, different colors are different steps to the GF UI.
If I give each square a different color (ugh), their material settings appear in seemingly random order
It’s definitely ugh if you don’t understand the order. It’s actually a major plus when you do: these are done in color hex code order. Of course you memorize hex codes, right? RIGHT? No? well, then you’ll love custom palettes.
For example, I can’t click on a shape to access its settings: I need to hover each materials setting entry to see which shape is highlighted and thus which shape is affected.
I hear you here, the GF UI usability has some major holes.
Let’s talk abut your solutions:
Grouping / ungrouping functionality for shapes
This is accomplished in your design software by making them the same path, or by wrapping them in a border shape whose color you simply ignore. Of course any shapes that overlap or enclose each other in your design are automatically grouped. Also, if you have a LOT of small parts, they’ll be autogrouped into one blob, which will annoy you to no end.
Support setting speed/power in SVG metadata
They do support this but only for PG materials and settings, and in a really ugly way for the average user to edit or work with. It’s kind of a dead end at this point, barring new functionality.
Click a shape, scroll to / highlight its materials settings
I am 100% with you here, it woul dbe great to figure out settings from the shape, not the other way around.
Enable changing settings for multiple shapes at once, e.g. select 3 shapes, give them the same settings, then select individual shapes to refine different speed settings
Another win, also one I’m with you on. It’s been suggested, so it’s in “the hopper” supposedly.
Color-coded speed/power settings like RDWorks (can’t believe I’m asking for something from RDWorks)
This is problematic for a few reasons, especially backward compatibility. As for going forward, it could lead to some nasty settings accidents, which can lead to fires. I can imagine glowforge is quite content to make the default settings 0 power 1000 speed for this reason; it’s the least dangerous setting.
Anyway, you have great ideas, hopefully GF will implement something like these things.
In the meantime, I like this test cut method:
And I personally don’t really recommend any engraving test grids, engraving is too complicated to make an easy one-size-fits-all test pattern – there are too many variables. YMMV, some people swear by them, but I think they’re largely a waste of time. I’m sure there are exceptions and narrower scopes where a test swatch can be handy but for a general purpose engraving test… I just don’t think the utility is there.
For more on this, search the forum for engraving test template:
This is all super helpful to know! I’ll look into the palette generator; I’m working in Inkscape so that’s great. As long as I don’t need to visually differentiate shapes, I think I could just type in ascending Red values to get a sane order?
Understood re: grouping. Bummer re: in-SVG settings only for PG.
Sounds like you and I are on the same page re: power-user features, Inkscape hacks, etc. @evansd2! Ever tried monkey-patching the UI javascript? It crossed my mind…
Also, is there a repository for non-obvious UI features like the hex code ordering, speed/power in SVG, Shift to rotate stepwise, and probably other things I don’t know yet? (I wish there was a wiki, or a full manual for the cloud software.)
Never thought about it much. What I’ve seen here has been that if something is that big of a deal, that someone codes a workaround, it’s not long after that GF patches things up and makes the workaround obsolete (saved settings especially comes to mind, nice trick making a hacky solution, but as soon as GF let us save settings it was lights out for that.)
Even if you did hack into their JS, they’re likely to change it soon and then you stand a good chance of having your workaround get broken in the process. The UI is an evolving space, it’s shaky ground to build a serious project on, you know?