Re:Interfaces for Prototyping Hardware
by analog31 on Sunday September 03, 2023 @09:10PM
(#37376193)
I've gone back and forth on this. I'm involved in very early stage development of sensors and instrumentation systems. If anything I create threatens to end up in a real product, there's an entire department of coders who figure out the user-facing side of things.
What I find useful is real-time displays, when I'm still at the stage of manually adjusting and optimizing things, and sometimes a few controls so I don't need three hands in the lab. But on the other hand, dialog after dialog of settings can easily be managed instead with a human readable text file.
Tkinter and Matplotlib actually work well enough for my use. I don't need to make anything look as slick as a management dashboard, or completely user-proof. I've developed a great appreciation for the time and effort (i.e., cost) that go into creating fabulous GUIs. Most makers of sensors and controls who send out a "demo" or "setup" app never get to that level.
What I find useful is real-time displays, when I'm still at the stage of manually adjusting and optimizing things, and sometimes a few controls so I don't need three hands in the lab. But on the other hand, dialog after dialog of settings can easily be managed instead with a human readable text file.
Tkinter and Matplotlib actually work well enough for my use. I don't need to make anything look as slick as a management dashboard, or completely user-proof. I've developed a great appreciation for the time and effort (i.e., cost) that go into creating fabulous GUIs. Most makers of sensors and controls who send out a "demo" or "setup" app never get to that level.