ahoeben

> For now, what we can achieve is to reduce the number of settings that exposed to the UI as many as possible That is what Recommended mode does. Even Custom mode, by default, only exposes a very small subset of the available settings. The idea is that the interface can grow with the experience of the user. Unfortunately, some people seem to be intent to advice even novices to just make every setting visible, which leads to a very suboptimal learning curve. I am not saying the settings UI is perfect (far from it), but thought was given to this.

You could use a newer laptop, but that’s about all.

You can't change all the highlighted lines from the definition files. The absolute extrusion lines should change to relative extrusion lines if you change the "Relative Extrusion" setting in the "Special Modes" category. The M104 and M109 lines that appear before the start gcode will not be inserted there if you include them in your start gcode as follows: M104 T{initial_extruder_nr} S{material_print_temperature_layer_0,initial_extruder_nr} M109 T{initial_extruder_nr} S{material_print_temperature_layer_0,initial_extruder_nr} Cura looks for the string "material_print_temperature" in your start gcode. If it is not there, it will prepend its own heatup sequence. You can also use a post processing script (eg search and replace) to edit the output before it is saved/exported.

Unfortunately, step A is required "because of how Cura is built". You will notice that all tools in the sidebar (except from the Open button, which is not actually in the toolbar) get disabled when there is no selection. This can not be changed easily.

Share the model, please. Autoslicing can be turned off.

Is the bottom of the model actually flat? The Lay Flat algorithm in Cura isn’t all that smart, and just checks if three vertices touch the buildplate. 3 points define a plane, but the 4th may actually be slightly off that plane. You can always use the move tool to move the model slightly down into the buildplate. This will ensure a flat bottom surface.

I think in Cura 2.3 you could already go into Machine Settings for the UM2Go, and change the G-Code flavour to “Reprap (Marlin/Sprinter)”. This should give you your material selection in Cura.

Or was I paraphrasing Theodore Roosevelt?

If you change the gcode flavor (in Machine Settings), you have full control over all material parameters in Cura, including flow. But with power comes responsibility to make sure these parameters are correct for the material you want to slice for.

The original idea with the UM2 family was to slice once and be able to print with different materials from that one sliced file. This means that all material-specific settings are controlled on the printer instead of in Cura. Nowadays the consensus is that this was an interesting idea, but it doesn’t really work because different materials can require dramatically different settings (including eg different adhesion, support and infill settings) that could not be changed easily on the printer.

It should be possible by making a plugin that patches CuraEngineBackend, which is the bundled plugin that handles communication between Cura and CuraEngine.

Thanks for the confirmation!

Those 3 horizontal lines are colloquially known as a “hamburger” menu (two buns and a patty). Note that the search... does not exist in Recommended mode, and neither does the hamburger menu (because it is all about setting visibility)

For the record, my design rationale was to mirror the Solid/Xray/Layer view dropdown aesthetics that is right next to the sidebar. I do agree though that that dropdown also stands out a bit (if anything I think I made that view dropdown look less out of place by echoing it...) I may hide the Custom/Recommended mode behind a hamburger-style menu dropdown. I don't think changing terminology in this plugin is a good idea, because then documentation, forum posts etc no longer apply. The current width of the dropdown aligns with the width of the material dropdown. Options in the general preferences that apply to plugins (eg the privacy options) are hardcoded there, they are not actually put there by the plugin.

Thanks for the suggestion. It is “not possible” for a plugin to add options to the general preferences page*. I needed to put that switch somewhere, and this is where it ended up. I may tweak how it looks in a future version, but for now it is going to stay there. *: Nothing is 100% impossible, but it would involve replacing the entire general preferences pane with a version that has the extra option in a similar way that the plugin replaces the entire sidebar, and I am not going to do that)