# Incra Jig Template Maker



## The Viking (Aug 3, 2008)

Hello All,

Years ago I downloaded from somewhere a software program that would print custom dovetail templates for my Incra Jig. I've used it with good results ever since. A month or so ago my computer crashed and I lost the program. I hadn't thought to back up since it was readily available then. I've searched but cannot find a link that works now. Any ideas on where to look?

Thanks in advance,

Jon


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## old55 (Aug 11, 2013)

Welcome to the forum Jon. No doubt some of the Incra folk will come to your aid.


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## bobj3 (Jan 17, 2006)

Hi

The PDF file below has one you can print out  see it on the last page of the manual...

http://www.routerforums.com/incra-manuals/32962-incra-lite.html

===



The Viking said:


> Hello All,
> 
> Years ago I downloaded from somewhere a software program that would print custom dovetail templates for my Incra Jig. I've used it with good results ever since. A month or so ago my computer crashed and I lost the program. I hadn't thought to back up since it was readily available then. I've searched but cannot find a link that works now. Any ideas on where to look?
> 
> ...


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## dutchman 46 (May 23, 2007)

Hello Jon! I read Your post Yesterday, but in Michigan, We have been having Ice Storms! I have used one some years back, called Template Maker by Crestline. I have been trying to get it online, but I can not get online to the program. The address is, or used to be
:www.TemplateMakerbyCrestline. More than that I am not sure of. This may be the one Your mentioning! You can give it a try. Sorry I can't be more precise, Lines are down all over Michigan.


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## Semipro (Mar 22, 2013)

Hello welcome to the forum Jon


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## bobj3 (Jan 17, 2006)

Router Forums - View Single Post - Dovetail template

http://www.routerforums.com/guide-bushings-templates/21241-dovetail-template.html
http://www.routerforums.com/jigs-fixtures/17792-ez-pro-dovetail-jig.html

http://www.routerforums.com/jigs-fixtures/30687-ez-dovetail-jig.html
==




dutchman 46 said:


> Hello Jon! I read Your post Yesterday, but in Michigan, We have been having Ice Storms! I have used one some years back, called Template Maker by Crestline. I have been trying to get it online, but I can not get online to the program. The address is, or used to be
> :www.TemplateMakerbyCrestline. More than that I am not sure of. This may be the one Your mentioning! You can give it a try. Sorry I can't be more precise, Lines are down all over Michigan.


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## CharleyL (Feb 28, 2009)

I didn't find the one by Crestline, but found this one online

Hand Cut Dovetail Templates. Imperial and Metric

I haven't tried it, but it looks interesting and can maybe be used with the jig.

Here are the templates for the old Jointech IPM-1 jig. Maybe they will work in the incra jig (both jigs work very much the same).

http://www.routerforums.com/other-specialty/36996-jointech-templates-manual.html

If you find the Jointech templates work for you, print them on photo paper and then cut them into strips.
They will last much longer and are much easier to read.

Charley


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## dutchman 46 (May 23, 2007)

Actually, if You start looking that over, there are many templates for You to use!
Hand Cut Dovetail Templates. Imperial and Metric! Very many, indeed!


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## The Viking (Aug 3, 2008)

Thanks to all for the replies. 

Semipro, Thanks for the welcome. I'll take the advice from your post and enter my bio.

Dutchman and Bob J, Yes, That's the program that I used to have. I used it a lot because it would print out templates for any size work calculating for any number of tails, always with a half pin on each end. I had already tried to use the download from Bob's post in 2010 but my computer would not run the program. Maybe my lack of computer skills are at fault here. I still have all the Incra prepared templates that came with my jig so I might have to use those. Its just that the template maker program printed a custom pattern and I didn't have to make sure that the factory template would allow for the half pins at the end of the joint. 

Charley, I'll try the other templates. Its just that both the factory templates and the templates printed by the program I'm looking for fit into the slot on the jig.

Any further advice is much appreciated. 

Jon


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## bobj3 (Jan 17, 2006)

Hi Jon

Once you have the zip file put it in a a temp.folder then click on the file called
TMKR0011.EXE the program should run..if it runs put it a folder (i.e. C:\TMAKER1\TMKR0011.EXE ) make a short cut for it on the desk top so you can get to it easy..with out the need to install it..

======

==


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## CharleyL (Feb 28, 2009)

Jon,

I use a guillotine type paper cutter and cut only one sheet at a time. With care they will be cut very straight. Careful positioning against the ruler at the top will produce the exact width that is needed. 

Charley


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## MAFoElffen (Jun 8, 2012)

I found it... Wood Magazine had it. Instructions and link to the zip file is here:
Dovetail Template Maker


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## wbrisett (Feb 12, 2011)

Maybe this is what you are looking for: 

```
http://www.woodmagazine.com/woodworking-plans/jointing-and-planing/dovetail-template-maker/
```
 Dovetail Template Maker

(sorry, I don't have enough posts to actually point to a URL).


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## jw2170 (Jan 24, 2008)

wbrisett said:


> Maybe this is what you are looking for:
> 
> ```
> http://www.woodmagazine.com/woodworking-plans/jointing-and-planing/dovetail-template-maker/
> ...


I think this is that same as Mike posted earlier...


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## dutchman 46 (May 23, 2007)

Hello BJ! That's the one! I went to their web site, and found nothing. The one that I posted was run 0n XP, I believe, and Win 95! so that gives an idea how old it is! It may run on 3.1, so? I am not sure if it is available from the owner of Crestline, or not. Any One who wants to go further that I did can do so. If You find out any more, Please post it on the forums, Thanks!


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## Arcola60 (Jul 4, 2009)

The Inca Master Reference Guide & Template Library is on sale @ Incremental Tools. I ordered mine last night and received confirmation that it shipped today.
The sale price just about takes the shipping cost out. 20% off is still 20% off.
Just passing on another option.

Ellery Becnel


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## bobj3 (Jan 17, 2006)

Hi Howard

It will run on win3.0,winXP, and all windows OS it's true that it's a 16bit program but windows will know that and add it to the win.sys and the sys.ini files but no big deal just unzip the file and (click on ) run the exe file..

==



dutchman 46 said:


> Hello BJ! That's the one! I went to their web site, and found nothing. The one that I posted was run 0n XP, I believe, and Win 95! so that gives an idea how old it is! It may run on 3.1, so? I am not sure if it is available from the owner of Crestline, or not. Any One who wants to go further that I did can do so. If You find out any more, Please post it on the forums, Thanks!


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Hi folks,

I know this is an old thread, but it's the most recent that refers to this software. I found this thread several months ago and couldn't find the software. Plus, I only have a Mac. So I wrote my own. It should run on Windows, but I haven't tested it there yet.

I don't have enough posts to provide the download link and website. If you're interested in the software, let me know.

Thanks,
-Rob


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## kp91 (Sep 10, 2004)

Rob,

Welcome to the forum! You can always come back to this thread in a couple of posts and add the link.

Thanks for sharing, I'm sure it will be greatly appreciated! I used the old one way back when, and I can't wait to check your version out.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Thanks for the very nice reply, Doug!


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

By the way, here's sample screen shots... comments and suggestions welcome!

1) Box joint (mouse is hovering over "Bit Width", showing a help window)

2) Dovetail example.

3) Variable-spaced box (can do this as a dovetail, too)


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## Charel09 (Apr 6, 2015)

looks great

can you switch to metric too?


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Charel09 said:


> looks great
> 
> can you switch to metric too?


Hi Carl, yes metric is supported, although I haven't tested it as much. At this stage in the code's development, it requires that you text edit the "options.py" file to turn on metric. The part of the file to turn on metric should look like this:

# Use this line for English, with a 1/32" interval size:
#OPTIONS['units'] = Units(intervals_per_inch=32)
# Use this line for metric, which always uses a 1mm interval size:
OPTIONS['units'] = Units(metric=True)

If there's enough interest, I plan on making this option a bit friendlier (such as a menu selection).

Also, welcome to the forum, Carl!


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

*pyRouterJig link*

I forgot to post the website for the code:

pyRouterJig by lowrie

Comments and suggestions are welcome! Note that I haven't tested this on Windows, and I don't have access to a Windows machine to even try it. In theory, it should work, but installation may be a struggle. Even for the Mac, installation is not exactly "user friendly." See the "Installation" link off the page above. Send me a message if you have trouble...I might be able to help.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

If you have a Mac (running OS X 10.6 or later), I've made the install a lot easier:



 Download https://github.com/lowrie/pyRouterJig/releases/download/0.1.0/pyRouterJig.app.zip
 Find the file pyRouterJig.app.zip in Finder and double-click on it. This should create pyRouterJig.app in the same folder (the ".app" part might be missing, depending on your Finder settings).
 Double-click on pyRouterJig.app. That should open the application. However, you might get a security warning, depending on your settings under System Preferences (you can get rid of this easily, but I'm not sure I want to encourage folks to change their security settings to do so...do so at your own risk).

Let me know if it works, or not.

Windows is work in progress...first I have to get access to a Windows box.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

*Windows now supported for pyRouterJig*

I just put up a new version of pyRouterJig, which now supports Windows. Installation for Windows or Mac now very easy. Go to pyRouterJig Home Page and click on *Download for Windows* or *Download for Mac* for the latest version.

Changes include:
* Unit system (English or metric) may be selected easily from *Units* menu. I have an English version of the Incra, so I'd be very interested to hear how this actually works for someone with the metric version.
* May select wood species through *Wood* menu. Changes are purely cosmetic 
* Printing now done through a print-preview window. You can also "print to a file"; the file type depends on the platform and format support.
* The underlying graphics system changed for drawing figure. Much better window-sizing response and behavior.
* Numerous bug fixes and other improvements.

Lots of great feedback from folks...keep it coming!

Below is a sample screenshot that I'm going to try cut this weekend, part of baseboard heater covers that I'm working on.


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## kp91 (Sep 10, 2004)

Rob, 

Can't wait to check it out!


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

Hi Rob, downloaded it. Panda AV thought it was a virus so I had to ok the file out of quarantine.

It seems to work ok. The template strips as printed appear to be correct (always a question with printers...). Good job!

What I was hoping to be able to do is make arbitrarily spaced box joint templates. In particular, I want to make one tail and pin to be a kerf width wider (1/8") so I can cut the top off a box and have consistent spacing between the base and the lid. In the past, I've made 2 cuts, one on either side of the pin but would like to not waste the wood.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Hi Phil,

That's a bummer about the Panda AV. I have a friend who pays for Symantec AV. He downloaded and scanned the file and it reported it has virus free. I'm looking into "signing" the executable (M$ has a procedure for doing so), which I hope might help with other virus scanners.

I'm not sure I understand what you want for the box joint. It sounds like you want all the tail and pins equally-spaced (say 1/2"), except for the tail and pin on one side of the joint (left or right), which you want 1/8" larger (say 5/8"). I suspect a picture would be worth a thousand words.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Phil, from the opening screen, I increased the board width from 7 1/2" to 7 5/8". The right pin/tail is then 5/8". Is that what you mean? See screenshot below.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

Panda AV just puts the file in quarantine and you have to explicitly OK it. More of a speed bump than anything else. It doesn't like unsigned executables.

I thought my explanation of the kerf thing might be confusing. Trying again. lol. One way to make hinged boxes is to glue up the box with the top and bottom. Then you use a table saw to cut to top off. That way the top and bottom match. See my avatar for an example of this. Here's a link to a Mark Spagnuolo article on the technique. With box joints, you wind up cutting into one of the fingers and, thus, it is shorter by the width of the saw kerf. You can solve this by cutting off a full finger's worth but that wastes wood and you don't have the alternating fingers across the cut. For decorative boxes, I'm kind of AR about this sort of thing. I'd want to put the wider finger anywhere.

Going beyond that, I can see how there would be value in being able to make arbitrary width fingers (and dovetails). For example, the attached drawing shows a decorative box joint where the top and bottom have similar designs. Note that the kerf is shown. When cut apart, it would look like the second picture. There are lots of possibilities with arbitrary per finger/pin/tail spacing.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Very cool, Phil. You might have seen that arbitrary is on my list at

pyRouterJig by lowrie

under the bullet "More spacing options, such as an interactive GUI to allow manual adjustment of individual finger positions and widths." I can see why this would be nice.

Anyway, I'm thinking about the interface to do this. What I'm considering is that you start with one of the existing options (Equally or Variable spaced), and then allow the user to click and select a finger. Once selected, that finger can be either

a) moved left or right
b) made wider or narrower
c) deleted, in order to allow neighboring fingers to operations (a) and (b). Of course, you also need to be able to add fingers back in.

(a) and (b) are constrained by the bit width.

I'm definitely open to other ideas. What I'm thinking above shouldn't take too long to implement...if only I didn't need my day job :smile:


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

Yeah, that's exactly it! I solved my day job problem but I hear you about work vs fun. Happy to help however I can, though my skills are more in the C/C++ realm. Glad to do testing if you need.

It would be nice to be able to type in a width as well as use a mouse.

Other ideas - the double joints from the incra templates are pretty cool. I'm not sure if there are variants on that.

By the way, would be possible to bring back crosshatch as a "wood" selection? I kind of prefer that to wood textures.

Also, I really like that you can use smaller bits to make larger cuts.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Thanks for the testing offer, Phil. I'll take you up on that.

Yeah, the wood textures are a gimic and bloating the executable. It's very easy to remove. It seemed like a good idea at the time...

Double joints are also on the list, although I've never cut one of those. It seems like the current variants should extend to double joints.

The sliders have the advantage that the constraints are easy to enforce. Note that you can click on a slider and move it with your left/right arrows, and of course, it moves in 1/32" clicks. Keyboard entry (like the bit width) takes a lot of error checking and handling, but I'll think about it.

Funny, C++ is a lot of my day job. I suppose Python is an escape from that. C++ would definitely run faster.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

I just put up a new version of pyRouterJig, which now supports Windows. Go to pyRouterJig Home Page and click on Download for Windows or Download for Mac for the latest version.

Changes include:

* Added Editor mode, which allows for arbitrary specification of the finger spacings and sizes. See this section in the documentation for a full description.
* Decreased the number of Wood samples. Also, selecting NONE will give a simple cross-hatch of the board. This helped decrease the download size.
* Added width annotation (in intervals) to each finger.
* Bug fixes.

Phil, with the Editor mode, you should be able to create the Spagnuolo joint, although the user interface probably needs work. I'll post an example soon.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Here's a screenshot with the Spagnuolo joint...the red (highlighted) finger is the one to be split with a 1/8" cut.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

Seems to work pretty well. Thanks!

I was able to produce a template with what I think is a kerf's width wider finger (1/8"). I think it's 1/32" per click of the move, trim, widen buttons? It would be nice to have move push all the fingers to the left or right rather than having to move each one in turn. 

One thing that confused me at first was that if you have a full pin on the bottom on the far right that ends at the edge of the board (based on the stated width), you can't move the pin. If I widened the board by another pin width, it let me move the far right pin. It works this way because you don't let the user push a full pin off the edge of the board. I don't think that's a needed constraint. It's easy to wind up with half pins in centered mode. Generally, I would make a template for a much wider board than I would use and then choose to center or not based on how things go in the shop.

Here's a picture of my typical usage. I may give this exact one a quick test tomorrow.

Thanks again for doing this. I'm going to play with making some strange joints.

By the way, spent some time looking at the double joints. Basically they make 6 cuts and use 2 templates. Probably not an easy change.

edit: one other thing, is there a reason to not show the info in the lower left corner when in editor mode?


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

PhilBa said:


> I was able to produce a template with what I think is a kerf's width wider finger (1/8"). I think it's 1/32" per click of the move, trim, widen buttons?


By default, that's correct. More generally, it's one "interval", which I describe fully in the docs, but the intent is to lock it to the step size of the LS Positioner.



> It would be nice to have move push all the fingers to the left or right rather than having to move each one in turn.


Definitely on the to-do list. In fact, the internal coding is already there to do each of the operations on multiple fingers. But I'm struggling with the user interface to extend "Select" to select multiple pins (a keyboard short-cut would be easy). Suggestions welcome.



> One thing that confused me at first was that if you have a full pin on the bottom on the far right that ends at the edge of the board (based on the stated width), you can't move the pin. If I widened the board by another pin width, it let me move the far right pin. It works this way because you don't let the user push a full pin off the edge of the board. I don't think that's a needed constraint.


Good catch! I hadn't noticed that. Yes, there's no reason not to allow you to move the pin off the board. This shouldn't be hard to fix.



> By the way, spent some time looking at the double joints. Basically they make 6 cuts and use 2 templates. Probably not an easy change.


Are you referring to "double-double" joints, like on pages 39-40 of the Incra guide? I actually hadn't considered these and was only thinking of the "double" joints (pp. 35-38).

I'm a bit surprised Incra uses 2 templates. I would think there'd be issues in alignment when you swap the templates, but maybe the "Alignment Mark" they use takes care of it sufficiently.

Anyway, the code should be extensible to these cases (famous last words of a code developer), but certainly it's going to take some work. I had been thinking of the double case, and I'm glad you pointed out the double-double...I had missed that.



> edit: one other thing, is there a reason to not show the info in the lower left corner when in editor mode?


Do you mean the Board Width, Bit Width, etc.? I noticed in your screen shot they appear invisible. Is that correct? They should be just grayed out. On my Windows box (or more accurately, Windows 7 under VMWARE on the Mac), they're grayed out, although definitely closer to white than on my Mac. I may need to darken them some. I didn't want to allow changing these parameters when in Editor mode because it opens a can of worms of error checking, and I wanted to indicate this in some way.

Thanks for all the great feedback, Phil! I'm sure you'll find more issues and don't hesitate to share :grin:


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

furboo said:


> Definitely on the to-do list. In fact, the internal coding is already there to do each of the operations on multiple fingers. But I'm struggling with the user interface to extend "Select" to select multiple pins (a keyboard short-cut would be easy). Suggestions welcome.


I don't think you need any special UI, just allow the higher numbered pin (tails, fingers) to be pushed to the left. For example in the default values, if I select finger 3A and move it left, fingers 4A-7A and fingers 4B-8B all move to the left. 



> Are you referring to "double-double" joints, like on pages 39-40 of the Incra guide? I actually hadn't considered these and was only thinking of the "double" joints (pp. 35-38).
> 
> I'm a bit surprised Incra uses 2 templates. I would think there'd be issues in alignment when you swap the templates, but maybe the "Alignment Mark" they use takes care of it sufficiently.


Yeah, Double-Double. Incra suggests you install both templates at the same time since only their very first had only one template holder. All the later ones have multiple. Aligning 2 should be fairly easy - as long as the are within 1/64th of an inch of each other it should be fine. I'm in no hurry.



> Do you mean the Board Width, Bit Width, etc.? I noticed in your screen shot they appear invisible. Is that correct? They should be just grayed out. On my Windows box (or more accurately, Windows 7 under VMWARE on the Mac), they're grayed out, although definitely closer to white than on my Mac. I may need to darken them some. I didn't want to allow changing these parameters when in Editor mode because it opens a can of worms of error checking, and I wanted to indicate this in some way.


Yes, on my Win 7 machine they are completely gray. The picture I posted is exactly what I see in the program.

Thanks for listening to my comments. I've run lots of SW teams over the years and have tended to be pretty pointed with my review comments. Maybe not "Jobsean" but definitely focused on making the product better. You get a better product from that but sometimes bend egos along the way. I'm definitely trying not to do that here (you've done fine work) but I think it's hard for this ol' dog to change his spots completely.

So, that said...

One thing I was thinking about last night is "sharability" of templates. I assume you'll add a save/open capability. It would be nice from day one to be able to post a template for other Incra-mentalists. Maybe automatically use zip files for sharing so they can be attached to posts. Not wild about that specific idea, though. If the data isn't big, maybe it could be embedded in an image attribute (PNG?) - that would be cool, the picture IS the template. The PNG spec allows for "textual" information so the data could be embedded there. Anyway, I would add those to the various project plans I post.

I like the idea that you would allow for "fold over" templates for hand cut joints. I assume that is why you are thinking of dropping the use of intervals. Not sure doing that buys much - I don't see a lot need for working at less than 1/32" or 1mm. I'd think printing a dimensioned "shop drawing" would be a good way to do that.

I'd love to see a joint preview image that shows a 3D view of the actual joint (along with an optional cut line for bonus points!).

Really stretching here but it would be way cool to export a Sketchup file (or other 3D format) that defined the fingers/pins/tails for easy incorporation into a design. Even just a 2D of the outlines would be great.

Anyway, thanks for listening and, again, good job!
phil


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

PhilBa said:


> I don't think you need any special UI, just allow the higher numbered pin (tails, fingers) to be pushed to the left.


Great idea, Phil. I guess I was thinking of applying any of the operations (not just Move) to multiple fingers. But maybe just Move is good enough.



> Yeah, Double-Double. Incra suggests you install both templates at the same time since only their very first had only one template holder. All the later ones have multiple.


Ahhh...I wasn't thinking of using more than one holder...Duh!



> Yes, on my Win 7 machine they are completely gray. The picture I posted is exactly what I see in the program.


Hmmm, that's strange. What I'm doing to gray the text is obviously not cross-platform. I'll come up with something else.



> Thanks for listening to my comments. I've run lots of SW teams over the years and have tended to be pretty pointed with my review comments.


Yeah, I have lots of experience with SW teams being defensive about their work. Maybe I don't care because this project isn't my day job, or I'm just getting old.



> One thing I was thinking about last night is "sharability" of templates. I assume you'll add a save/open capability.


Yes, particularly now with the Editor. With just the other spacing options, it was pretty easy to recreate a previous joint. That's no longer true.

I'll think about the format. The needed data is pretty small. It could be a simple text file.



> I like the idea that you would allow for "fold over" templates for hand cut joints. I assume that is why you are thinking of dropping the use of intervals. Not sure doing that buys much - I don't see a lot need for working at less than 1/32" or 1mm. I'd think printing a dimensioned "shop drawing" would be a good way to do that.


I probably at least need to allow changing the interval size easier (right now, you can only do it if running from source via the options file). But if I allow you to crank up the resolution (say to 1/1024"), then the Editor is going to be pretty tedious. That'll take some thought.



> I'd love to see a joint preview image that shows a 3D view of the actual joint (along with an optional cut line for bonus points!).
> 
> Really stretching here but it would be way cool to export a Sketchup file (or other 3D format) that defined the fingers/pins/tails for easy incorporation into a design. Even just a 2D of the outlines would be great.


I'm not real excited about implementing a 3D viewer, but maybe the two above can be combined. If you had an appropriate skp file, then you could visualize it easily in 3D using Sketchup. 

Unfortunately, I searched a bit for the skp format and found this discussion

Sweet Home 3D / Feature Requests / #105 Provide a SketchUp/SKP import

So outputting skp is not going to be easy. However, it looks like the 3ds format might work, which even Sketchup Make can import (Pro can do more CAD formats).

Thanks again Phil! It likely won't make you any richer, but you've made it to the Acknowledgements section of the documentation.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

*Tried a template in the shop*

two issues came up

1) First one is an easy fix. The text on the template strip needs to be closer to the center. It get's cut off by the edges that hold the strip in. see picture.

2) I'm having some alignment issues. I don't think it's the SW but it's a bit vexing. When I went to cut a test joint, it was clearly off the farther I got into the cut. I think the problem is that the heavy paper I used isn't stable. It was heavily curled so curled it the opposite direction. That might have caused the problem. It was off by about 1/32" over 7" and the joint didn't fit. I reprinted it and measured without straightening and it was pretty close (maybe off 1/64" over 7 inches - could be the printer). I'm not sure how accurate my rulers are - they all tend to disagree slightly. I should probably try laminating the strip to make it a bit more stable. The problem with these kind of joints is that any error, no matter how slight, compounds quickly. Especially with 1/4" box joints.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

PhilBa said:


> two issues came up
> 
> 1) First one is an easy fix. The text on the template strip needs to be closer to the center. It get's cut off by the edges that hold the strip in. see picture.
> 
> 2) I'm having some alignment issues.


Damn, I haven't tested the template since switching to a different graphics system (Qt). Sorry about that. Keep me posted on the alignment issues...it very well might be on the software side.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

furboo said:


> Damn, I haven't tested the template since switching to a different graphics system (Qt). Sorry about that. Keep me posted on the alignment issues...it very well might be on the software side.


I'm pretty sure it's not the SW. I'll run another test tomorrow morning.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Version 0.4.1 just pushed out:

* Under Editor, allow active finger to be Moved off of board extent (and even deleted in doing so).
* Move template text to center of template.
* Change color of of text in Board Width, Bit Width, etc., when Editor is invoked, so hopefully not invisible under Windows.

Phil, in particular, let me know about the last item. I changed the text color to "gray" instead of an RGB spec, which I hope might fix the issue.

I'm still thinking about the multi-finger Move.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

Yeah that looks good. Can see the grayed text and the template looks like it will be visible.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

Ah, I just realized that you implemented file/save. The docs say that ^p allows you to also save a file. This doesn't happen on my Win7 system.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Just pushed out version 0.4.2, fixing some issues you pointed out, Phil.

The "save" referred to in the documentation actually now opens print preview. I've changed the documentation to refer to printing, rather than saving. Ctrl-p (on Windows) should be a keyboard shortcut for the menu selection File -> Print. I'm assuming the menu selection works for you, or you wouldn't be able to print the template. It's odd the keyboard shortcut is not working for you. Do any other shortcuts work? Ctrl-a = About, Ctrl-s = save a screenshot, Ctrl-q = quit.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

PhilBa said:


> I don't think you need any special UI, just allow the higher numbered pin (tails, fingers) to be pushed to the left. For example in the default values, if I select finger 3A and move it left, fingers 4A-7A and fingers 4B-8B all move to the left.


Phil, I've thought about this more, and I'm not sure this will work all that well. Say I start with the first figure below using Equal spacing, enter the Editor, and move 1A and 3A out to the ends, as in the second figure. No problem so far, your UI behaves the same as the current UI. But now say I want to move 1A and 3A back to their original positions, or anywhere between. If I understand your UI, I can't move 1A to the left, or 3A to the right, without also moving the other fingers.

Does this make sense, or am I missing something?


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

I see your point. Multiselect would allow that though that probably more work than you were anticipating.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

I think I can do the multi-select and not have it too clunky...thanks Phil!


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

That would be nice! 

by the way, where does screenshot put the image? It doesn't seem to go on the clipboard, local directory or desktop. I use alt-printscrn to grab the screen image. Built into a program is not that useful a feature on windows.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

PhilBa said:


> by the way, where does screenshot put the image?


There should be a message in the lower left that tells you where it put it. It puts it in your home directory, something like

C:\Users\PhilBa\screenshot_0.png

As you save multiple screenshots, they're numbered sequentially, screenshot_1.png, screenshot_2.png ... until you restart the program, and then old files will be overwritten.

I admit, it's not that user-friendly, but I wanted something quick to generate screenshots for the documentation.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

Success. See the pictures.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Nice Phil!

I have more travel this week, which along with holiday weekends with visiting in-laws, will hopefully give me a chance to get some of the to-do stuff knocked off.


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## Stick486 (Jan 4, 2013)

PhilBa said:


> Success. See the pictures.


you got that right...


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

When preparing the template for use, I used clear tape (Scotch Brand) to stabilize the strip after I rough cut it out. Both front and back. Then I trimmed it to the proper width. It slipped in pretty snugly and passed the "Incra Test" - Line up the strip and then going the full distance. If the cross hair lines up exactly on the first and last cut mark, it's a good template.

One thing may be slightly off. Using the above template, I found that the "multiple cut marks" (next to 5A) didn't precisely line up in the LS positioner though all the other marks were spot on. They were off by well less than the 1/32" increment of the LS Positioner so I just used the closest point and it worked. Using a ruler, it looks like they are a tiny bit to the right. Definitely less than 1/64", probably around 1/128".


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Phil, just so I understand, are you saying 3A and 4A (both not numbered) and 5A all were off, or just some of them?

Great idea about the tape. Whatever is necessary for the strip is obviously a strong function of the paper used.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

No, I'm saying all the A and B marks were spot on, it was the extra cut lines that were slightly off. They are circled in the picture. Looking closer, it seems like they are off by the width of the line. Could just be distortion in the paper at those marks? I'm learning how stretchable paper really is so it could well be that.

To be clear, once I understood it, there was no problem using the template. Just know that some marks will be slightly off and the LS will properly position the cut as long as you get the closest position (interval, increment).

By the way, a thought on nomenclature. You use the term interval, perhaps increment would be more descriptive and tie back to the nature of the positioner.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Hi Phil, yes, I like "increment" better. Good idea, as usual.

I'll double check the measurements. But let me explain the cuts, because I think there might be confusion:

* 3A and 4A are indeed "extra" cut lines, but they're no more special than 5A. The only reason that they're not labeled is that they're too close to each other. If I labeled them, their label would be on top of the adjacent cut line (BTW, I have noticed issues with font scaling that I'm working on).

* For your bit, the 12 increment cut (3/8") could be made with just 2 passes, rather than 3A, 4A, and 5A. But I feared (untested) that this could result in asymmetries. So there's always a centered cut (in this case 4A), followed by pairs of cuts symmetric about the center cut. This is pretty easily changed, and I need to put this on the to-do list to investigate.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Phil, I recreated your joint, and then output it as a PDF. I used Acrobat's measuring tool with a 100x scaling (to get 2 more significant digits), and the distances look dead on. See figure below. Acrobat's annotation is a bit hard to decipher...remember to divide the numbers shown by 100.

I wonder if the default dpi on your print process is something low, like 72 dpi. Mine is 300 dpi, whether to pdf or printer. I had to output this from the code to get the value...not sure how to get it, otherwise.


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## PhilBa (Sep 25, 2014)

Hmmm, not sure where the problem. It looks like you are generating the lines correctly. My printer is a Brother 2270W laser printer. They claim base resolution is 1200 dpi but I believe it's interpolated in the y dimension. I'm printing at 600 dpi. I'll try printing to a pdf to see what happens.


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## furboo (Oct 12, 2015)

Version 0.5.0 released:

* Editor now allows applying operations to multiple selected fingers. See screenshot below.
* Save/Open capability of screenshots to PNG image files, with the joint metadata embedded in the PNG file (great idea, Phil!). This way, you can open a previously-saved PNG file and start work where you left off, share PNG files, etc. For example, you should be able to download the image file below and open it in pyRouterJig.


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