v1.5.0-Edge-2

Hey folks, we're back with another Edge release, adding a few new features and functionalities, on top of catching us up to any changes that made it into 1.4.10.

As always, Edge is beta quality software - so please be aware that things can and will go wrong. Please use your brain when it comes to using Edge for deadlines/projects.

Firmware detection

gSender now detects your firmware flavour on connection and chooses the controller for you! No longer do you have to worry about forgetting to swap firmwares when connecting to different machines or connecting to a new machine. We hope this allows an easier, more plug-and-play experience when connecting to a machine for all users and less situations where behaviour is not what's intended because the user chose the wrong firmware to connect with.

We've made some assumptions - if you're connecting with ethernet, for example, it will default to grblHAL.

Let us know how this works for you! We're especially looking for feedback from people using non-Sienci boards to make sure we've worked through the edge cases.

Settings and EEPROM

Settings and the firmware tool have been combined into a new Configuration tool for a one stop shop in setting up your machine. We're hopeful that having settings and EEPROM more closely grouped allows the user a more straight forward experience in configuring their CNC.

Groups should make sense from a high level - for example, the Spindle contains both the settings for gSender to enable the tab and set laser/spindle max and min power, along with any EEPROM settings relevant to configuring your spindle. In cases where grblHAL supports natively some functionality such as laser offsets, the setting will use those EEPROM values instead of the local values for a more seamless user experience and less confusion (what value is going to be used, the one in EEPROM or the one in gSender settings?).

There are some slight behaviour changes. Settings must be applied instead of automatically saving, for example. We hope there is not too much of a learning curve - we're excited to hear feedback on both groupings and how it functions.

Machine Information

We've added an easy interactable information modal to let you know about both current firmware modals and pin status. Some of this information was available in the old user interface within the diagnostic tool, but we hope having a single cohesive spot on the main interface will be helpful to non-novice users.

Notifications

We've made some changes to application notifications. No longer will a toast with relevant information get missed- you now have history of application notifications.

Various other tweaks

There's a number of other tweaks and fixes from the first release, including the minimize handler and active tool indicator working, rotary A controls appearing in the correct situations for vanilla GRBL, no more -0.000 and more.

The next release should largely be focused on the last remaining tools (such as tool changing) and responsiveness/mobile control.

And as always, thanks for your feedback and reports throughout the EDGE process. We're hopeful as Edge becomes more feature complete, we'll receive a wider variety of feedback from all user types.