Enhanced Machine Controller

I thought we discussed this at length last night on IRC.

We agreed that halui should have outputs that could be used to drive an
external display, and inputs so that the operator of that display could
specify the units, etc to be used.

We also seemed to agree that sending units, etc, info from Axis through
HAL pins to halui was not a good way to slave the halui display to a
particular instance of Axis. HALUI is an independent user interface and
knows nothing about what Axis is doing.

This feature request should be used to define the halui to display/control
interface, not to cover methods of "slaving" halui to Axis. (I'm pretty
sure we all agree that slaving halui to Axis wasn't a good design
decision.)

The goal of an external DRO display for Axis (whether pyvcp or real, like
7-segment or nixie) is a different problem and should have its own feature
request - the solution to that problem probably should not involve HALUI at
all. If you want a "display repeater" for Axis, implement it as a display
repeater, don't run a second complete user interface (halui).

Back to the subject of this feature request - I don't think there should
be an axis select input. Instead, there should be an output pin for each
axis (or joint), as well as any other things that the user might want to
put on his DRO. That way if he has a 3 line display, he can display three
things. A six line display can display six things. If he has a one line
display, he can use a HAL mux to select what thing to display, and so on.

I thought we discussed this at length last night on IRC.

We agreed that halui should have outputs that could be used to drive an
external display, and inputs so that the operator of that display could
specify the units, etc to be used.

We also seemed to agree that sending units, etc, info from Axis through
HAL pins to halui was not a good way to slave the halui display to a
particular instance of Axis. HALUI is an independent user interface and
knows nothing about what Axis is doing.

This feature request should be used to define the halui to display/control
interface, not to cover methods of "slaving" halui to Axis. (I'm pretty
sure we all agree that slaving halui to Axis wasn't a good design
decision.)

The goal of an external DRO display for Axis (whether pyvcp or real, like
7-segment or nixie) is a different problem and should have its own feature
request - the solution to that problem probably should not involve HALUI at
all. If you want a "display repeater" for Axis, implement it as a display
repeater, don't run a second complete user interface (halui).

Back to the subject of this feature request - I don't think there should
be an axis select input. Instead, there should be an output pin for each
axis (or joint), as well as any other things that the user might want to
put on his DRO. That way if he has a 3 line display, he can display three
things. A six line display can display six things. If he has a one line
display, he can use a HAL mux to select what thing to display, and so on.