G-Wizard Editor: Getting Started

(Note: If you haven't registered for G-Wizard Editor, please do so here!)

Screen Layout

The different elements of GWE are called out in the screen shot above:

- Menus: Just what you'd expect. Tools is where you go for various transformations on the g-code, Backplot for special options on the graphical backplot, and Insert gives you menu equivalents for the Insert buttons on the G-Code tools. The File and Edit menus are standard fare. Many of the menu choices are not working yet and keyword shortcuts are scarce.

- Login Bar: This is the same component found in the G-Wizard Calculator. In fact, where possible, I am sharing components, which is cool because you learn how they work once and can use the functionality in all the products.

- Tool Bar: This is the standard sort of tools. I will likely add some less standard ones over time as the G-Code Tool Bar is nearly full with insert and simulator functionality.

- Views: There are a number of different kinds of Views that are accessible from these two tab clusters. The views on the right are different perspectives from which to view the backplot. On the left are different views of the G-Code Program. There is the text itself, under "G-Code", the Hints, and an overall Info view. More on each one below.

- Line Gutter: This is an important tool for providing concise additional information about each line, as well as to tell you what the overall line number is.

- Status Bar: A few bits of incidental information such as the Line Number (in case you're looking at some view other than the G-Code), and the cursor coordinates when it is over the Backplot.

Let's look at these different regions in a little more detail below.

Menus

<Documentation coming soon!>

Tool Bar

<Documentation coming soon!>

G-Code Tools

There are three button clusters that make up the G-Code Tools ribbon:

• Wizards: Wizards help you quickly enter G-Code with easy keyboard shortcuts and prompts. See the Wizards page for more.
• Debugger: The debugger looks like music playback buttons. It lets you step through your g-codes and see what they're doing.
• Setup: The button on the far right opens the Setup tool, where you give GWE all of your setup preferences and options. See the Setup page for more.

Line Gutter

Beyond showing you the line numbers, the Line Gutter provides a couple of other kinds of interesting information:

Lines that have errors are highlighted in Red, so you can scan down the gutter and find them quickly...

Let your mouse cursor hover over a line, and a Tool Tip pops up giving you the Hint for the line. In this case, we can see quite a lot of info about Line 0013, including the fact that the Error is that G4 (Dwell) is not available. That just means GWE doesn't know what to do with it yet.

G-Code View

G-Code view is just a basic text editor. No surprises here!

Hints View

Hints View shows you a quick explanation of what the g-code does...

Hints View shows you a quick explanation of what the g-code on each line does. It's a great learning tool, as well as a way to see some deeper information about what's going on. Doesn't everyone learn to read G-Code pretty quickly? Sure, reading something like "G0 X0Y0" is pretty easy. But, what about that canned cycle you use once in a blue moon. What exactly where it's arguments again? With Hints View, you can be reminded instantly what's going on.

Note that the Hint where the cursor in the G-Code view is gets a heavy black outline. If you're running the g-code simulator, you can leave Hints View up and the outline tells you which line is currently executing too. Most lines are alternating blue and white background, but if GWE finds an error on the line, the hint for that line will have a pinkish background. The error text within the hint will be called out in bright red. This makes it easier to scan through and find your errors quickly.

Tools View

The Tools View (accessed via the "Tools" tab), collects information from your g-code program about what tools are used and where the Tool Changes occur:

The Tools View...

The Tools View lets you do the following:

- See a list of all the Tool Changes in your program. Double click any tool change to go directly to that line.

- See a list of the Tools used in your program. Double click any entry to go to the first use of the tool in the g-code.

- See the comment associated with a tool, which may help identify which tool it is.

- See which length or tool radius compensation is in use for the tool.

- Map the tool to tools in the Tool Crib. This is useful when working with Feeds and Speeds. This is done by selecting a crib with the dropdown, and then picking which mapping style should be used. Mapping can be accomplished by matching slots numbers (i.e. the "T" # must match the crib slot #) or by matching the tool comment to the crib's tool description. The latter is very flexible when tools can move around to different slots in the changer.

- Create a new Tool Crib table that corresponds to the tools used in the g-code program by pushing the "Gen Crib" button.

For more on the Tools View, visit the GWE Tool Data Management page.

Info View

Info View gives quick summary information about your G-Code program...

Info View gives quick summary information about your G-Code program:

- What are the maximum extents (travels) of the various axes? In the screen shot, the X-axis stays in the range from 0 to 11 inches.

- What ranges of spindle rpms and feedrates are used? In the example, the spindle runs at 1600 rpm the whole program, and the feedrate ranges from 3.5 to 7 IPM.

- The Code Types pane breaks down how many of each kind of code are encoded in the program. This program has 2 errors (we saw one up above), 185 G-codes of all kinds, 13 M-codes, 1241 XYZ moves of which the shortest was 0 distance (hmmm, have to look at that one), 858 arcs specified by IJK and no arcs specified with R (radius), and so on.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Because G-Wizard Editor is an editor (no duh!), we designed it with a lot of keyboard shortcuts so you can power your way through editing quickly without constantly reaching for the mouse. For a list of the shortcuts and their mnemonics, visit the "Keyboard" documentation page.

What to Read Next?

Now that you're familiar with how the screen works, it's time to customize your GWE so it understands the needs of your CNC controller. That's done in the Setup Page. If you'd rather just continue to read about the features of GWE, try checking out the Wizards page next.