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TEMPLOT 3D PLUG TRACK - To get up to speed with this experimental project click here.   To watch an introductory video click here.   See the User Guide at Bexhill West.

  • The Plug Track functions are experimental and still being developed. Some of the earlier pages of this topic are now out-of-date.

    For an updated overview of this project see this topic.   For some practical modelling aspects of using Plug Track see Building 3D Track.

    The assumption is that you have your own machines on which to experiment, or helpful friends with machines. Please do not send Templot files to commercial laser cutting or 3D printing firms while this project is still experimental, because the results are unpredictable and possibly wasteful.

    Some pages of this and other topics include contributions from members who are creating and posting their own CAD designs for 3D printing and laser-cutting. Do not confuse them with Templot's own exported CAD files. All files derived from Templot are © Martin Wynne.
  • The Plug Track functions are experimental and still being developed.

    For an updated overview of this project see this topic.   For some practical modelling aspects of using Plug Track see Building 3D Track.

    The assumption is that you have your own machines on which to experiment, or helpful friends with machines. Please do not send Templot files to commercial laser cutting or 3D printing firms while this project is still experimental, because the results are unpredictable and possibly wasteful.

    Some pages of this and other topics include contributions from members who are creating and posting their own CAD designs for 3D printing and laser-cutting. Do not confuse them with Templot's own exported CAD files. All files derived from Templot are © Martin Wynne.

Linux and Templot

Quick reply >
I was impressed by the efforts of Andrew Hunt (Templot and Linux topic in the old Templot Club) in getting Templot running natively on Linux. I would hope that if we can get a repository set up that Andrew would be able to commit that code and share it with the rest of us :) I suspect that his fixes for 64-bit Linux will also help with building on 64-bit Windows.

Regards,
Alistair Ward.
 
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Hi All,
This is just by way of a quick update to let you know we are still alive and kicking in development land.

Since Andrew seemed to have left the fold, I made the changes to allow T3 to work on linux. Unfortunately this has NOT included the work around EMF files yet, so although the program is running, it doesn't really do anything useful yet.

WELL ... that's not quite true. The trackpad seems to be working OK, so It IS possible to edit templates, and since we have a mostly-working PDF module it is possible to create a template and save it as PDF, which can then be printed. However, without being able to read and write files, this is really of only academic interest for a little while yet.

The next exciting step was Alistair taking this and making it work on a Raspberry Pi, which for those who don't know is a tiny, cheap computer. It is a remarkable little device, with prices starting around GBP35-ish, though I expect Alistair's model was probably around double this.

This is important, though, as it means we have a single version of the code which will run on a PC on Windows, on a PC on linux, and on a non-PC machine (the Pi) on linux. All very encouraging for our cross-platform ambitions. (Android here we come!)

Even given the still-severe restrictions on what can be achieved with the program, we hope to be adding new features in the not-too-distant future (or rather re-enabling currently disabled features :)) so it would be great to have someone to run the occasional test on an Apple machine, as that is the one major platform we do not yet have covered. Any volunteers?

It is still rather early days, but we will also soon be looking for testers on Linux, so if anyone is interested ....

I have also done some analysis on the code that Martin commented out way back when to create the first T3 version, and categorised all the work needed to address the removed functionality into some 40+ issues. Still a LOT to be done.

Alistair, meanwhile, has done great work on breaking out components of Templot along with work around the development environment so that we can have automated tests to verify our future changes.

Anyway, more news as it happens, but in the meantime, keep safe. :)
 

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Hi Martin,

Obviously all this digging through the code is going to raise a few (ha!) questions. We are trying to sort things out for ourselves to avoid being a complete PITA, but inevitably there are some things we just don't know and can't figure out with certainty.

If I may start with an easy one ... is the 'old_startup' form that I see mentioned related to the T2 function which contacts the Templot web site to check for new versions?

Thanks,

Graeme
 
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If I may start with an easy one ... is the 'old_startup' form that I see mentioned related to the T2 function which contacts the Templot web site to check for new versions?
@graeme

Hi Graeme,

Good to hear from you. I wish I'd been asked these questions when I first released the open-source files 3 or 4 years ago. Since then I have suffered significant brain-fade. :)

I can no longer remember most of this stuff and I have to look in the actual code to try to find the answers. And there are multiple places to look -- current Templot2; Templot2 as it was when I released the first open-source files; those files; the updated open-source files which I released in 2019; the T1 files I'm half-way through posting now, but can't remember where I have got to. :(

The answer to your specific question is no. For legal reasons Templot doesn't use the internet connection until you click the GO button, which is then an informed click after reading the note above it:

go_connect.png


Ignore the old_ part of old_startup_form. It is the current startup splash:

startup_form.png


As far as I can remember there was a new_startup_form about the time the Pyramids were being built, but I reverted to the previous one. What was in the new one I no longer have the faintest idea. I don't think it was ever released.

This form is in startup_unit.pas

While it is displayed Templot does some housekeeping, such as checking for multiple instances, doing the DPI scaling for the program size function, detecting which version of Windows it is running under, detecting if it is running under Wine, making sure there is a default printer, etc.

Some or all of this is/was redacted or commented-out from the open-source files but it would take me all day to discover exactly what was done in each version.

I assume the T3 program will have its own "check for updates" functions independent of the Templot web site, but what or how that will work I don't know -- over to you.

cheers,

Martin.
 
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Hi Martin,

Thanks for this.

Yes, there is a lot of code there, and many changes over the years.

On the plus side, we are able to get rid of some things. Since we are attempting to make this cross-platform, Wine does not come into the equation, so we will be able to remove all the Wine-related code ... in the fullness of time, of course. 😁
 
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Well it seems I was unduly pessimistic of what would work on Linux. Box files can be saved and read in, and best of all, printing looks to be working too!

One change in the code that I have not yet been able to fathom, @Martin, is that in many forms (about 25 of them) the initial height and width settings have been removed. I have tried replacing the settings and all seems to work OK, so I just wondered if you recall why you commented them out.

Cheers,

Graeme
 
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One change in the code that I have not yet been able to fathom, @Martin, is that in many forms (about 25 of them) the initial height and width settings have been removed. I have tried replacing the settings and all seems to work OK, so I just wondered if you recall why you commented them out.
@graeme

Hi Graeme,

In Delphi5, in all the form OnCreate events, I set the ClientWidth and ClientHeight to the design size, and leave Windows to adjust the overall form size to suit. This is because different versions of Windows have used varying border widths over the years, from the thick bubble-gum look, Aero, and now Windows10 with a single line narrow border. If you set the overall form size, you get different client sizes in different Windows versions, and annoying scroll bars appear in versions with wide borders.

In Lazarus, for no reason I could fathom, client size is read-only, so it was a mess. Or some such reason why my Delphi5 code wouldn't work with the DPI scaling. I commented out any size settings that I had been playing with and left the design-time sizes in the lfm file. At the time, my main aim was to get Lazarus to compile and run. Fixing the cosmetic details I left for the future.

Good to hear that you are making good progress on Linux. :)

cheers,

Martin.
 
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Even given the still-severe restrictions on what can be achieved with the program, we hope to be adding new features in the not-too-distant future (or rather re-enabling currently disabled features :)) so it would be great to have someone to run the occasional test on an Apple machine, as that is the one major platform we do not yet have covered. Any volunteers?
if you still want testers who are using iMacs, let me know.
I can load, run and test.

Especially as I am having problems with the latest version of crossover, and have lost 6 months of Templot boxfules as a result!
 
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Hi Simon,
Thanks for this offer. Things have been a bit quiet with holiday season and, for me anyway, January is a busy month, but getting back into it now and ramping up again next month.

Do you have Lazarus loaded already on your mac?
 
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No, I don’t have Lazarus.

Addendum:
I can get it and use it, but I gained the impression that you might want a user who would simply install the OSX version of Templot and then give it serious test.
If I need to download Lazarus and compile the code, it’s not a big obstacle.
 
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Ooops! Perhaps clumsy wording on my part. Apologies if I was not clear. 😟

No, the Apple world is such that (as far as I recall) an OSX version of a program can only be created on an Apple machine, of which we have none, of course.

I did have a discussion with @Alistair Ward about a HowToGetStarted document for the hoardes of developers who would be joining the project, but I am not sure it got beyond that discussion. Perhaps this is the impetus I need to get that started. Not that it is especially difficult, but there are a couple of setup steps required.

I will be on it next week. 👍
 
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In Lazarus, for no reason I could fathom, client size is read-only, so it was a mess.
Yes, hard to see why they would have done that. :rolleyes:

On a brighter note, I have written the inverse of the extended-to-double function, i.e. a function which will take a double and return the bit-pattern representing a 10-byte extended value. As it's all done by bit-twiddling, it will work on platforms that do not support 10-byte extended values. That means that given the latest file format, we have the pieces needed to write T2 box files. (Well they do say 'never dare a fool' :) )
 
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Hi, @Simon Dunkley - as promised I DID get round to working on the "getting Started" guide ... and then got BACK round to it after an interruption ... and then ..... well you see how that went.

Anyway, we finally have a first cut of this (see attached). Let me know how you get on with it. There ARE a few components, but hopefully the documentation for each will work for you.

Bon chance!
 

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