Thoughts about the new Cura

[ultiarjan 1,223]

For me it's ok eather way, but in your example I would like to be able to set flow for top/bottom/wall/infill separately...

so @nallath any idea how it's planned to work in new cura ?

[nallath 1,120]

so @nallath any idea how it's planned to work in new cura ?

 

No, it's an engine thing. I never worked on the slicing engine. @bagelorb might know.

[mostlyatomicbob 34]

I miss the actual sizes of your model (in mm) :(

The new Cura also scales your model to fit the bed but in the scale box reads 100%.

But overall I like some of the new features and the support generation is much better.

Keep up the sterling work.

[danilius 118]

Any idea when Ubuntu 14.04 will be supported?

[ahoeben 1,948]

For the record I'll mention that I'm not a fan of the graphic design of the application.

Most importantly, there's way too much whitespace in the settings panel, leading to a lack of overview of the settings even when only the default settings are enabled (let alone when more of the special settings are enabled).I tried editing the theme files, with some success, but the margin between the controls (lines) seems to be a function of the line-height. So the most important factor to tame down the whitespace is not accessible.

The small font-size, light grey on white text is hard to read in places. Specifically the Mode/Machine selection at the top and the Please load a 3d model text at the bottom of the settings panel. Speaking of the Mode/Machine selections, I wonder why it is there in the first place. The Machine selection is duplicated in the Machine menu, and most of the "newbie users" the new Cura is supposedly focused at are going to have only 1 machine anyway.

On the aesthetic side of things, I dislike the use of chamfered edges on EVERYTHING. On the buttons it is fine. The section headers are ok, but not my favorite thing to look at. But everything from progress bars to sliders? And all with different proportions/amounts of chamfering... It's just too much. There are also some rather poor alignment issues (eg vertical margins for the tooltips above the buttons, the horizontal alignment of the layer slider, just to name a few).

Finally there's arguably the most important functionality of the application (saving the sliced gcode) which is pretty much hidden at the bottom right of a settings panel.

Update: Some fixes here: http://ultimaker.com/en/community/view/16718-new-cura-theme-fixes

Edited July 12, 2015 by Guest
Added link to fixes

[zoev89 73]

Well I failed installing the new Cura. I am running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and there seems to be a packadge problem. The python3-qt5 version is incompatible. It requires 5.4.0 and I have 5.2.1. I don't have enough experience in updating to newer packadges then supported. Likely that is a hell which I don't want to get into. Installing new software is not my hobby. I guess I have to wait for 16.04 :(.

[danilius 118]

Well I failed installing the new Cura. I am running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and there seems to be a packadge problem. The python3-qt5 version is incompatible.

 

There are plans to make it 14.04 compatible but there is no official word on when this great event will happen.

[ahoeben 1,948]

I don't like the Cura logo/watermark featured so prominently in the interface. What other apps do you know that have a watermark like that? The Cura title is already in the titlebar. The placing is confusing, because it is placed right next to an important button, but it isn't a button itself.

We already have the Ultimaker branding in the bed mesh, which actually has a function; it shows the orientation of the bed. No need to add another branding element IMHO.

Edited July 12, 2015 by Guest

[ahoeben 1,948]

Can someone explain the "Open" and "Save" icons? I commend you for not using the floppy-disk icon, but I just don't understand these two icons. To me, the Open icon looks like a platform lifting in an SLA printer (liquid resin basin at the bottom). Not sure about the Save icon. A tap running over the resin basin?

[zoev89 73]

 

Well I failed installing the new Cura. I am running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and there seems to be a packadge problem. The python3-qt5 version is incompatible.

 

There are plans to make it 14.04 compatible but there is no official word on when this great event will happen.

 

Thanks at least there is some hope.

[nallath 1,120]

We already have the Ultimaker branding in the bed mesh.

 

Well, actually. Not if you use a non-um printer. Seeing that UM put tons of money in the development, a bit of branding isn't that weird. We could look at the placement though. Any ideas where else to put it?

[nallath 1,120]

Thanks at least there is some hope.

 

Yeah, sorry about that dependency. We found a critical bug in pyqt 5.2, so we could not use it. The guys of qt were fairly quick with fixing it, but it did result in the 5.4 dependency.

[zoev89 73]

 

Thanks at least there is some hope.

 

Yeah, sorry about that dependency. We found a critical bug in pyqt 5.2, so we could not use it. The guys of qt were fairly quick with fixing it, but it did result in the 5.4 dependency.

 

Aha so I will wait until ubuntu update its packadge since you will not go back to 5.2 in your case due to the bug. Thank for letting me know.

[ahoeben 1,948]

 

We already have the Ultimaker branding in the bed mesh.

 

Well, actually. Not if you use a non-um printer.

 

While that's a fair point, it's not very nice to "punish" your paying customers with in-your-face branding because a percentage of the users of the software are not paying.

[danilius 118]

While that's a fair point, it's not very nice to "punish" your paying customers with in-your-face branding because a percentage of the users of the software are not paying.

 

Hey, one can buy CURA? Wow, I had no idea - how much does it cost? Link please, anyone?

Edited July 13, 2015 by Guest

[nallath 1,120]

While that's a fair point, it's not very nice to "punish" your paying customers with in-your-face branding because a percentage of the users of the software are not paying.

 

Like I said, fair enough; What would you suggest? It's easy enough to change.

[ahoeben 1,948]

Like I said, fair enough; What would you suggest? It's easy enough to change.

 

My suggestion would be showing the name in the title bar (where it already is), and the logo in the splash screen and an "About..." window (where it already is). If you really want to feature the logo more prominently, what you could do is put it on screen until a model is loaded. A bit like Firefox opening to a Firefox-branded version of Google.

Another suggestion (which I may regret having mentioned later) is putting it on the printer bed grid (in perspective, ie worked into the grid.frag shader). But please do it subtly, in the same greytones as the current grid)...

[nallath 1,120]

 

@ahoeben; All right, we will keep it in mind for the upcoming GUI changes.

[ultiarjan 1,223]

Hey, one can buy CURA? Wow, I had no idea - how much does it cost? Link please, anyone?

 

You pay for cura when you buy an Ultimaker printer ...

[danilius 118]

You pay for cura when you buy an Ultimaker printer ...

 

Ooohh, so I can't buy it by itself then? For a different brand of printer?

[DidierKlein 729]

Cura is open source and free for anyone to use.

What is meant is that the developers are paid by Ultimaker (so basically by people who buy Ultimakers)

[danilius 118]

Cura is open source and free for anyone to use.

What is meant is that the developers are paid by Ultimaker (so basically by people who buy Ultimakers)

 

Since CURA is open source, anyone can download it and use it FOC. And Ultimaker, who pay for the development of CURA, are OK with that.

That would appear to imply that even when I bought my Ultimaker, the software - although paid for out of the money I paid for the machine - is not actually a part of the deal itself. It is more of a sweetener.

Consider "Buy one, get one free". Would anyone argue that asking just for the free one is reasonable? The deal is really that the "free" one is a discount across both items. If you only want one item, you don't get a discount. It is a conditional deal. If one could ask for the free one, however, then it would change the deal completely. Then the second item really is a freebie.

Now, is the deal "buy an Ultimaker and get CURA free"? Hardly. One get CURA free already. Ergo, one does not pay for CURA at all. One buys an Ultimaker in the understanding that Ultimaker will use part of the income from that sale to pay for the development of CURA.

But if Ultimaker could get the development of CURA done for the half the price, or free, surely they would. Now, if they would get such an opportunity, we would be able to gauge this argument more clearly by the degree the price of an Ultimaker fluctuates. If the price dips by a significant percentage, then we can regard the development of CURA as a "tax" within the price of an Ultimaker. If on the other hand the price remains the same, then the burden of developing CURA is one Ultimaker will bear regardless of cost provided it does not bankrupt them.

Or a different scenario would be if all of a sudden Slic3r would actually work out of the box for an Ultimaker and really look awesome and generally outperform CURA in such a way that almost no-one bothers using CURA anymore. Would Ultimaker continue to pursue the development of CURA? Surely not! Why bother, if there is something out there and better, and free as well.

So the development of CURA is largely there in order to induce sales. This does not make CURA a paid-for product, but is more like a free umbrella one might get when buying a suit. Although probably more useful than the umbrella.

Why this whole long polemic? Because I hate whiners. You don't like where the branding is located? Well, CURA is open source last time I looked. You want it changed? Change it yourself. You want someone else to do it for you? Ask really, really nicely; especially if they are very busy dealing with problems that to other users are slightly more urgent. Like getting it to actually work under Ubuntu 14.04.

[nallath 1,120]

This does not make CURA a paid-for product, but is more like a free umbrella one might get when buying a suit.

 

Not even that, as you get the umbrella without buying the suit in the first place (although it does match your suit better if it's an Ultimaker )

[danilius 118]

Not even that, as you get the umbrella without buying the suit in the first place (although it does match your suit better if it's an Ultimaker )

 

I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Where exactly do I wear the Ultimaker in order to get the umbrella to match? I'm confused here, but then again that's nothing new for me.

[nallath 1,120]

I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Where exactly do I wear the Ultimaker in order to get the umbrella to match? I'm confused here, but then again that's nothing new for me.

 

Well, those things are better left for private messages