Another FreeCAD Gadget: Physical macro pad

[mnesarco]

Hi Friends,
I revived some old code to convert any wifi connected Phone or tablet into a physical macro pad for FreeCAD. The basic idea and protocol is working, i need to add customization options before publishing it on Github.

phpBB [video]

The idea is that users can create its own screens with custom buttons. Activate workbenches, execute macros or any FreeCAD command from one or more external touch screens.

it will be included in Mnesarco Utils Extension Pack.

[chrisb]

Nice addition. Can you elaborate how you did it? What has to be done on the App side, and even more interesting, how is the connection to FreeCAD established?

[rockn]

Awesome ! It's like a streamdeck but for FreeCAD !

[mnesarco]

Nice addition. Can you elaborate how you did it? What has to be done on the App side, and even more interesting, how is the connection to FreeCAD established?

Hi @chrisb, It is a webapp, it runs from freecad (python http server) so you don't need to install anything else on the device, just open the browser and put your local IP address and a configurable port number. The app gets everything by rest calls, including icons, and call FreeCAD commands and macros posting back (ajax). There are some levels of cache to avoid constant generation of icons and macro parsing, but everything is dynamic, so it reflects the current state of FreeCAD. Unfortunatelly I have not found a way to enable/disable buttons based on context yet. So if you activate a workbench for example, you get a grid with all buttons from its toolbars, but no clue of which one are enabled/disabled. I am considering sending updates with a timer but checking actions status all the time can be a performace problem, so I am open to ideas here.

[mnesarco]

Awesome ! It's like a streamdeck but for FreeCAD !

Yes it is highly inspired by stream deck, but using any device and specific for FreeCAD.

[mnesarco]

Small demo of current progress:

phpBB [video]

[HakanSeven12]

İnteresting +1

[Kunda1]

That's friggin awesome!

[mnesarco]

As nearly all macros have no icon, what do you think about autoassign generic dice icons to macros?

screenshot_13.png (57.84 KiB) Viewed 3374 times

A combination of dice number and color will provide a lot of generic unique icons.
The idea is to look for an icon in this order:

1. Use a custom icon configured by the user if any
2. Use the icon provided by the macro if any
3. use a generic dice icon from the pool

What do you think?

[Kunda1]

Not a bad solution