Cura UX requests

[fingerpuk 0]

Hello.

I'll start with saying what wonderful software Cura is, I'm a developer myself so I know how much effort goes into writing these tools. However, I think some changes would speed everything up for the end user.

When adjusting size, or typing into any input box the live updating is slow, meaning it can take a while to delete the 6 characters for example in the Z dimension box to replace them. You can't select the field and replace also, only backspace over everything and start again. It would be nice to simply be able to click in the field, type in a new number, then have it work out the change once you hit enter.

The layer view is impossible to use which is a shame as it's such an important part of the software. It seems to be rebuilding the layers on the fly instead of storing the data and simply calling it back? It means I'm using netfabb to check my models before moving over to Cura.

Supports, it would be great to be able to manually add them. Is this pen source also, if so I'd be interested in seeing if I could help.

I'm on a Mac.

 

[IRobertI 520]

Not sure I understand your issue with the layer view. How can you check what the slices cura produces will look like in Netfabb? The layer view isn't showing a section view of the model, it's showing what the actual layers of plastic will look like based on the produced Gcode.

 

[fingerpuk 0]

I mean if I slice the model in Netfab I can smoothly slide trough to check for parts of the model that need supports. That isn't possible in Cura because it's so slow, I move the slider and have to wait 4-5 seconds for anything to happen by which time it's jumped to a random point.

 

[IRobertI 520]

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, that part of the program isn't very fast yet. daid added a feature that shows the outer contours very fast a version or two back, but the actual rendering of the individual layers is slow (slower than previous versions for me). But, when it's done you should be able to scroll up and down without problems. Unless you change a setting it shouldn't need to re-render anything.

If I can add my own wants to this I'd really really like a true top-down view of layers. And also being able to show just a single layer at a time. I'm also not a fan of how only a few layers around the currently selected layer is being shown. If I really want to take a proper look at the produced Gcode I go over to Repetier host instead. It's annoying. I feel like form has been put before function here.

 

[eldrick 65]

Just having a color key for the layers view would be a big improvement all by itself.