Clone profile

[Drew]

I have my machine setup the way i like it , but now i want to change some buttons
I have the ref all button cust. pdf to go from
Should I clone my profile first ? I know in the manual it says only use one profile / one screen.
Is there an easy way to clone a profile.
I have an air collet and would like an open button to match the load/teach/close. Please
Thx Drew

[DaveCVI]

Hi Drew,

I have my machine setup the way i like it , but now i want to change some buttons
I have the ref all button cust. pdf to go from
Should I clone my profile first ? I know in the manual it says only use one profile / one screen.

Let me describe a little hierarchy to help answer the question -
MSM runs "on top of" Mach. In doing this MSM replaces some portions of the stuff supplied with MACH in order to provide the functional extensions MSM has. Mostly this is script differences; for example MSM replaces the stock M3,M4,M5,M6 scripts. Because mach stores scripts on a "per profile" basis, I tell people to set up a separate profile to run MSM and to keep their prior non-MSM profile. This provides a nice clean way for a user to run mach with or without MSM - just start mach using the different profiles.

However, what I think you are asking about is how to customize one or more MSM screens so that you have a customized MSM variant you can run. Once you're running MSM, the customization stuff can be thought of as sub-flavors of MSM. As such you don't really have to have a separate mach profile for a customized MSM instance. THis is one reason you change between MSM screen variants inside MSM via the setting common pge and not via the mach menu: view, load screens.

So strictly speaking, you do not need to create multiple MSM profiles. BUT.... (there's always a "but") you may want to do that (even if you don't have to). For example: If you were adding a page to handle a tool changer, there would likely be other settings for mach that have to be set to match the tool changer use - and mach stores all it's setting in the mach profile file. In such a situation I'd probably make two different (both MSM using) profiles - one for the tool changer and one w/o the tool changer; Just as a easy way to group all the interrelated settings into easy to use profiles.

If I were just adding a simple button, I'd probably just do it in my main MSM profile.

See it's the usual answer of "it depends..."

Is there an easy way to clone a profile.

Yes use what's called the "mach loader". This is the term that people use to refer to starting mach.exe without any command line arguments. When you do that, mach puts up a dialog to choose the profile to start with - as part of that process you can also copy an existing profile. See the MSM readme file for instructions on how to do this (that technique is used in the read me setup instructions to clone an existing profile in preparation to turning the copy into an MSM profile).

I have an air collet and would like an open button to match the load/teach/close. Please
Thx Drew

While I can't provide a detailed step by step, and it can seem like there is lots to learn if you've never messed around with changing any mach3 screen set before, I can point you to the general steps involved:

To add any button you'll need to get familiar with using machscreen to edit a mach set file. Essentially you copy a master MSM set file (there are button on the setting common page to do this for you) and use machscreen to make a custom MSM set file. You use machscreen to add the button. You can then attach the script code to the button in mach screen. There are multiple says to do this: You can put the code "into" the button (storing the code in the set file) or you can make the button code call a script file that is stored on disk (the technique that MSM uses for it's own buttons). These topics are in section 15 (customizing MachStdMill) of the main user manual.

This takes us to "how to get the graphic image for a button in the MSM style"?
An optionally installed component fo MSM is the graphics source files. You can install those and then you have the RealDraw source files for blank MSM buttons etc. You can download RealDraw fro mtheor website and use it to add whatever label you want on a button graphic. Save the new graphic and have machscreen use that graphic for your added button.

Note that you can use machscreen to add a plain old (non graphic) button, use it to get the function you want working, and then later come back and change the button from fixed plain style to a matching style graphic one.

Dave

[DaveCVI]

Hi,
I can save you the button image editing effort: attached are files for the "Open" button you asked about.
Dave

[Drew]

Thanks for the great support .
I plan on removing the teach button and replacing load with open
I have done some screen edit work before but the art is not my thing.
Thx Drew