Ultimaker Cura | a new interface

[jens3 11]

Boy do I feel silly ... I went to that page but didn't scroll down far enough 😞

 

Thanks !!

[jens3 11]

Is there a daily build image available ?

The published version is the one from December and is too early for me - lots of issues that I am sure have been reported before. I don't want to be commenting on stuff that has already been sorted out or is old news.

[rharper954 1]

The new interface will be very productive.I like the change...I've the Ultimaker 2+ and 3 printers and Cura is the best 3d software on the market. There is a feature I would like, or pay for the software and update, when you are printing a 3d object larger than the volume of Printer, the software help you spit the object into two parts or group to print separate prints. Object A make have a pin (.25 length) to plug into Object B (pin hole locator). That is something to think about in the future.

[nallath 1,120]

17 hours ago, jens3 said:

Is there a daily build image available ?

The published version is the one from December and is too early for me - lots of issues that I am sure have been reported before. I don't want to be commenting on stuff that has already been sorted out or is old news.

We have nightly builds, but those are meant for internal release. I will discuss this a bit with the rest of the team, because i do think there is value in providing nightly builds (Although these do come with absolutely 0 guarantees with regards to stability, as they haven't been tested).
 

13 hours ago, rharper954 said:

The new interface will be very productive.I like the change...I've the Ultimaker 2+ and 3 printers and Cura is the best 3d software on the market. There is a feature I would like, or pay for the software and update, when you are printing a 3d object larger than the volume of Printer, the software help you spit the object into two parts or group to print separate prints. Object A make have a pin (.25 length) to plug into Object B (pin hole locator). That is something to think about in the future.

You're not the first to think of this. I'm a big, big fan of this feature. I've tried to re-implement the algoritm as proposed by https://gfx.cs.princeton.edu/pubs/Luo_2012_CPM/ during a research sprint, but two weeks turned out to be not nearly enough to get to any functional state.

I'm trying to get a (computer science) student to do a master thesis on this, so if anyone knows someone who is interested, feel free to send a resume.

[jens3 11]

6 minutes ago, nallath said:

We have nightly builds, but those are meant for internal release. I will discuss this a bit with the rest of the team, because i do think there is value in providing nightly builds (Although these do come with absolutely 0 guarantees with regards to stability, as they haven't been tested).

That would be expected of daily/nightly builds by the very nature of the beast.

[jens3 11]

Thanks for the current build for Linux (20190116). I linstalled it and it seems much more refined than the official beta version. Well done !

While I have not had a chance to use things yet, I did poke around a bit and have a couple comments ....

1) The icons on the far right on the main screen  (right under the Marketplace box) only turn on/off the settings box but don't seem to do anything else. I am assuming the code for these is not complete yet but just in case they are supposed to be working I thought I would mention it.

2) The second issue is something that has bothered me for a while and thought that with the new UI it would be something that could be 'fixed' . This might also be a situation where I just don't fully grasp things so please bear with me.

In the center of the screen under the blue main banner is a box to indicate material choice. To the right of it is the selected profile. This works fine if for example I choose generic PLA and 'draft' as the profile but suppose I have a custom profile called 'PETG on glass' ? The material box still says  generic PLA but he profile is now set up for PETG. To me this is very strange and counter intuitive although I do not have a magic solution to suggest at this point. Off hand it would seem that the material setting is irrelevant when you use a custom profile ?? Maybe there should be a way to select the material and then a profile just for that material (rather than being allowed a choice of all profiles.

I don't know if that issue has come up before but I thought I should mention that the current setup is confusing to me.

 

Edit:

Also, if I change the material after having loaded a custom profile, nothing changes in the profile. This begs the question as to why that material selection is there if a different selection there does not change anything elsewhere.

 

Edit #2: I just realized that the icons (see suggestion #1) are just there to give a quick view on important settings .... totally not clear to me at first glance.

Edited January 17, 2019 by jens3
additional thoughts

[Glod76 0]

I agree it would be nice to try out Beta milestone builds along the way.

[ahoeben 1,948]

5 hours ago, Glod76 said:

I agree it would be nice to try out Beta milestone builds along the way.

 

I feel it would become a support nightmare. Many reports don’t even spell “Cura” properly, let alone the version number. Having daily builds only complicates that.

[burtoogle 513]

1 hour ago, ahoeben said:

I feel it would become a support nightmare. Many reports don’t even spell “Cura” properly, let alone the version number. Having daily builds only complicates that.

 

Whilst it would be great to get feedback on new features, bug fixes, etc. I think that having daily (automatic) builds would create a lot of spurious bug reports because there's absolutely no guarantee that the master branch(es) are usable or synchronised. Users are not really going to know if the failure is due to a "real" bug or simply because the repos are not actually in a usable state on that particular day.

 

With my own releases, I try to ensure that they are basically usable and don't have any known show-stopping problems. They are half way between a nightly build and a normal release.

 

[nallath 1,120]

Well, release branches tend to be much more stable so it should be pretty doable to release those.

[jens3 11]

2 hours ago, ahoeben said:

 

I feel it would become a support nightmare. Many reports don’t even spell “Cura” properly, let alone the version number. Having daily builds only complicates that.

 

How about something like a weekly build or even builds that are substantially improved?

I would not (and did not) report bugs on a beta build that is 4 weeks old. Many bugs will have been reported by that time and will have been corrected in the current code base so anything I have to add is out of date.

I guess it depends on your reason to release beta code - if you want input on bugs than intermediate releases are required. If you want people to see 'roughly' what is coming up then the single beta is fine.

It should (says he who has no clue) be pretty easy to enforce that no time is wasted on any bug reports that do not include a complete enough version number to make your attention worthwhile (boiler plate message to supply version number in order to be able to respond). I would actually suggest a boiler plate response of 'During our beta program, code is updated on a frequent basis. Please install the most recent beta to get the latest code updates before reporting any bugs. Please confirm which beta version this bug report applies to in order for us to respond'.

Don't look at it as 'support' but rather as extra eyes helping with input. It is (or should be) made pretty clear that a beta is not for production use and is liable to have significant issues.

If you do not make current code available, you will potentially be wasting time responding to issues that have long been resolved.

Like anything, there are positives and negatives to every choice ......

[tetov 0]

I maintain PKGBUILDs in the AUR for the beta branches of cura, curaengine, libarcus and uranium for installation on Arch Linux. They build from the latest commit on the 4.0 branches. Would it be possible for you to tag the beta releases on GitHub so we can use that as a source instead?

[Asger-P 3]

Hi

I'm sorry to say, but this, is in my opinion, no improvement at all and here are my reasons:

The most important thing in the daily work are the model and the settings, which means that as

much space as possible should be given to those two things. In the new version there is only half 

the space for the settings and  the model area have also been smaller because of some huge 

header blocks at the top. Modern screens are usually much wider then they are high, which means

as little space as possible should be wasted at the top and bottom. This is done much better in

Cura 3.6 see pic: Cura 3.6.png vs. Cura 4.0.png

The layer scrollbars are now positioned very far apart instead of close together as in the old version.

The settings window is jumping all over the place, see pictures: Cura 4.0XrayView.png

 

Sorry for this rather hard review of the new Cura UI and please note that it does in no way reflect

my opinion of Cura 3.6 which I use daily with great appreciation.  

Best regards
Asger

[ahoeben 1,948]

@Asger-P you could try my plugin, which restores the notion of a sidebar and rearranges some other functionality:

 

[Asger-P 3]

Hi Ahoeben

Thanks for your suggestion, but I have uninstalled Cure 4.0 again, hoping for a much better final release. :-)
 

Best regards

Asger

[ahoeben 1,948]

AFAIK, nothing major is changing in the interface for Cura 4.0. The settings floater will be resizable (so you can see more settings at the same time), but that's about it. My plugin will likely be available from the Marketplace by then. But you don't have to use Cura 4.0.

[Produktdesigner 5]

What is Marketplace?

[Smithy 1,144]

The place where you can install plugins...

[Produktdesigner 5]

Is it kostenpflichtig?

[Smithy 1,144]

No, all plugins currently available are free of charge.

[Produktdesigner 5]

Thank you

[Birdmanravo 0]

Since I haven't had much time in this I'll

1) I change settings constantly. Having the settings in its own drop down window feels like an attempt to hide complexity from me. On the one hand, I commend you for attempting to make the software more approachable. On the other, please give me the option to change it back immediately.

 

2) In Lubuntu when the screensaver kicks in and the monitor turns off the print stops dead. This means that Cura can be used to slice a model, but an attempt to print using it is a guaranteed failure. Is there a way to prevent this from happening? Perhaps in the same way media players prevent a screensaver from happening. I know how to prevent this in the OS itself, but since Pronterface has no issue I know I don't have to.

 

3) This is more a feature request than anything, but can adaptive layers have more options tied into it? I really like the feature and being able to slow down the print for thinner layers feels like it would be a great thing for print quality. Alternatively If I could select a range of layers in the interface and tell it to print them at X layer height and / or Y speed it would be a great feature. I know there's post processing option to do this, but frankly I lack the ability to work with this in its current state, and once it's done the change isn't visualized in the interface at all.

[ahoeben 1,948]

4 hours ago, Birdmanravo said:

On the other, please give me the option to change it back immediately.

I have linked to this before, but here it is again:

 

[Asger-P 3]

6 hours ago, Birdmanravo said:

2) In Lubuntu when the screensaver kicks in and the monitor turns off the print stops dead. This means that Cura can be used to slice a model, but an attempt to print using it is a guaranteed failure. Is there a way to prevent this from happening? Perhaps in the same way media players prevent a screensaver from happening. I know how to prevent this in the OS itself, but since Pronterface has no issue I know I don't have to.

You could also get into the habit of turning off the screen manually, when you leave the computer, instead of letting Lubunto do it for you.
Just a suggestion. 😉

Best regards

Asger

[Brulti 177]

9 hours ago, Birdmanravo said:

Alternatively If I could select a range of layers in the interface and tell it to print them at X layer height and / or Y speed it would be a great feature.

 

That's an idea that I second.