GrueMaster

The biggest issue I have with the new layout is that it takes away from the top, where on most monitors, it is needed. Almost all monitors these days, whether laptop or desktop, are wide screen. Sure, some power users will rotate their desktop monitors so it is in 'Portrait' mode, but the default is 'Landscape'. If you have external monitors with rotating mounts, this works ok. But the vast majority of laptop users don't have that option. And with most printers working in height vs width (Ultimaker printers included), this is crucial. When I fire up 4.0b, I lose half of my layout area, partially because of the top area, partially because the bottom plate is a third of the way up the screen. Having said that, if the decision of the developers is to go with this new layout, then as users, we will work around it (via plugins if need be) to make it work better for us. But I do agree with the comment about making changes for the sake of change. Look at the past in software development and review the UI changes across applications and operating Systems (even within the Windows world) and ask yourself how many of these changes were really beneficial (Windows program groups in 3.1 vs start menu in Windows 95 and up) vs new UI because we can (Microsoft BOB, Windows 8.1, Office Ribbon, etc). Even in the Linux world (where I live and breath), we go through these changes. Sometimes they work out (KDE), sometimes you feel the full wrath of your community (Gnome2 -> Gnome3 or Unity), although working with the community together can help iron out the kinks (both Gnome3 and Unity grew to be well liked). Don't take this as 'I hate everything about Cura changes', because if I did, I would have stayed on one version a long time ago (and wouldn't give feedback either way). Just me stating an opinion, partially backed with real world information.

As a former Ubuntu developer, I have yet to see a 'sudden drop in dependency support' that isn't discussed with the community during release development. Unless you are referring to LTS-LTS changes (which occur over a 2 year period with 3 development releases in between to cover this exact issue). Spin up VMs in your CI environment to do your testing. Very low overhead for this, and it can be automated quite well (this is what I do and have 10+ years just with Jenkins). As to hacking to get plugins to work, I can't remember off the top of my head but one plugin that was broken in the appimage (3.4 release iirc) required a few extra steps to get working semi-stable (as long as I didn't kill that cura session, it worked fine). I think what it was is the marketplace dumps plugins into the tmp directory structure created when runnning the appimage, not in the .local/share/... directories. Will have to check when I am back home on that system (and have spare time again). As to the file corrupt errors, I posted them once before (3.5 beta or 3.6 beta). Also, why does it keep resetting the values for my filaments (spool weight, cost, link to Amazon for refill in the notes)?

Why would you need permission from Creality to post their publicly available settings to an open source project? Other than the name reference, I'm not seeing a problem here, and if they complain about using their name in a project w/o permission, the Cura devs can fire back as they have an old release they ship with their systems. Just file a pull request on the github repo and get it in.

New interface looks good, but.... As a Linux user, I am still faced with the issue of every time I start (since 3.5), it complains that my printer profiles are corrupted (they're not). This happens even after I have written down the pertinent info, and recreated them (Hictop 3DP-17 & Hictop CR-10S). Also, since it is an appimage and not a true installer, getting plugins to work takes a bit of hacking. I really wish there were packages that could be installed. Having been a Linux developer for ~20 years, this is really easy to do, for both deb and rpm based distributions (which covers the vast majority). Or, maybe look into the new Snap package system as it is getting strong traction on both sides. I'll do a more extensive test this weekend when I have more time.

Fortunately (at least for Linux), having multiple versions doesn't seem to be a major issue as they are currently self-contained. And even if they weren't, it wouldn't take a whole lot to setup Docker containers if needed (mainly drive space - I have a 480G SSD and my Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop takes ~18G with a lot of extras I have installed). Having worked on Ubuntu directly for 3 years, I can tell you that it is really a LOT different to maintain an LTS OS than a single product like Cura, mainly in favor of the OS. Most of the apps are maintained upstream and a lot now have their own LTS tracks (including several stable kernel branches). Not to say that Ubuntu doesn't have their work cut out for them as they currently support two LTS releases, a development release, and a 'next' release that receives active development. Figure ~60-80% workload on new development, and the rest on support. For a large community, this is not a problem. I don't know how many active + community developers Cura has (I would venture to guess it is less than 30). Figure it would take 10-15% more to be able to backport bug fixes and then test them for any kind of maintained LTS tree. The hard part is the testing. True SW validation takes resources and skills different from most development disciplines. And even then, bugs get through.

Hmm interesting, why do you want to keep multiple versions on your computer? because they are "beta" and even often after full release there are often issues un seen till the multitudes get a copy and investigate all the deep cracks. Like anything I never rely on the newest version, play with it, but rely on the last known stable version.. I do this with computer, phones, and most other regularly updating items, especially software. It's kinda common sense when dealing with Beta and new versions of things. As a professional QA tester and validation engineer (day job), I concur. This is especially useful when trying to find some of the 'new features' that appear to be semi-hidden, or when comparing improvements to performance, etc. Unfortunately, I only have a few hours a week to dedicate to this hobby, and only a couple of printers (so far), otherwise I would put more of my skills into testing the releases instead of just printing skulls and baby groot.

So far, it looks the same. A few minor features, same issues on Linux (not copying existing profiles mainly - very frustrating). Very slow load time (partly due to excessive debug logging maybe?). Would be nice to turn off debug logging, or turn it on with an option (command line or config setting). Still seeing the following on startup: Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf", line 72: non-double matrix element Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf", line 72: non-double matrix element Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/10-scale-bitmap-fonts.conf", line 80: saw unknown, expected number This looks like you have an older embedded fontconfig. Need to verify with the source. See https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/fontconfig-bugs/2014-May/000859.html I also see a lot of new items under Special Modes, like Support Mesh and Drop Down Support Mesh (which sounds a lot like custom support), but there is no indication that I can do anything with them. Are they enabled? And if so, how do they work? The info in the preferences indicate there is something selectable. Anyway, this is just a quick first pass. Will work on it over the weekend to see what else I can find.