[chester88]

Was fooling with themes and the Touchy interface.
I patched it to use a different theme then the system.
I think the red buttons look better then the blue.
Or maybe both...

[cncbasher]

yea like the layout , can you post your changes ?
love to try it

[chester88]

You need to download the blue-joy theme:
Download GNOME-Look.org
It has to go in the usr/share/themes folder (you need root permission to do that)
At that point you could change the theme for the whole system and load Touchy.
The buttons will be blue

I then loaded the button PNG with GIMP and changed the color to red.
I just changed the button image so everything else is still blue

To allow one to just change the theme on Touchy,
I patched EMC 2.5 ,downloaded with git. (patch attached)
From there on the preference tab one can choose what ever theme that is available.

[chester88]

Sorry I couldn't upload the file as a patch so renamed it as a txt file.

[chester88]

A little bit of color makes a big difference:

[cncbasher]

A little bit of color makes a big difference:

great ! i'm loving it , flash next !
cant wait for the next instalment . all compiled ok here btw

[chester88]

Here is the patch that includes the ability to change the DRO text colors.
(again uploaded as a text file but really is a patch file)

after applying the patch you have to manually change them in the .touchy_preferences file.

It is found in your home file folder but is hidden. Click on view / show hidden
Its a text file.

If you have already run touchy after the patch you'll see:
dtg_textcolor = default
abs_textcolor = default
rel_textcolor = default

change or add them :
dtg_textcolor = #0B33E9
abs_textcolor = #EB1B11
rel_textcolor = #00FF00

Not sure there is anything else I would change on Touchy (color wise). This was the best looking theme I found but I don't actually use Touchy.

I am getting interested in building another GTK based frontend and was just playing with what could be done to make the GUI look better / more configuarable.
Both Touchy and Axis are well thought out and functional.
The only real complaints I have heard about AXIS and Touchy is that they are restrictive on what can be added or changed eg for custom controls. Glade_vcp helps a lot but still they are restrictive about where the panels go.
Touchy could use the graphic display.
(All my opinion)

The worry with a totally configurable GUI is it is usually easy to make it not work properly.

I looked at a few MACH3 screens but most of them look too crowded to me.
If you find a better theme or screen let me know or suggestion let me know.

[cncbasher]

yes i'd agree with your idea's too , mach is far too cluttered for a machine
but for gui idea's etc the screensets and flash are good .

i for one would like to see EMC2 reach the same gui feel
as that for me is the real letdown , but dont get me wrong i love Emc far more than Mach for it's functionality .

what's your feeling about using QT4 ? for developing themes has anyone try'd ? or some form of flash , similar to Mach is this feasable

i hope to get into the GUI side shortly and see what can be turned out
this theme has given some great thoughts , only now need to practice it

i presume this theme could be used across other EMC screen gui's at some stage

[cncbasher]

also for example , for ideas , i would like to go for something like the 'Benny's screen '
screenset for mach3 .

so your definately on the right road Chris

[chester88]

I have not used QT at all nor do I know any developer that has used it in EMC.
There is python bindings I think, pyqt ? That would make it easier as there are modules for the rest of the 'glue' for EMC using python.
Is QT better looking?

I want to use gtk and glade. I have the most experience with them.
I had already patched touchy to allow adding of gladvcp widgets to touchy but that was not excepted.

Now that I found one can make GTK pretty it motivates me to build my own highly configurable GUI.

I think Benny's screens are controls placed over images. i'll have to play with that.
Might be interesting to build buttons that display custom user images when on and off.
actually this is how the Blue-Joy theme works - though all buttons show the same images.

[chester88]

This theme can not be applied to AXIS or TKemc as they use tkinker for gui widgets.
I'm sure there is a way to change their theme too I just not as interested in researching it.
I have patched gladevcp to allow GTK theme changes (it of course uses GTK)
Which actually can make them look better when inside AXIS.

[cncbasher]

the reason i mention QT is the fact not only for the Gui , but bonus of being cross platform should the need arise at some stage .

Qt — Qt - A cross-platform application and UI framework

and that it's used for mobile phone use , so evolving over time touch screens and stuff , could be interesting for quite a number of applications within EMC
pendants for example .

[chester88]

This patch for Touchy theme changes has been added to upcoming EMC 2.5
Gladevcp panels will be able to change their theme too.