I would like to request that the slicers not be bound to a printer. I use Cura most of the time, but there are times when I want to use slic3r instead, and would like to not go editing the printer settings to select a different slicer.
Will this be possible in a future release?
I am the same…I almost always use slic3r but sometimes cura…I just created two printer profiles one with cura the other with slicer…makes switching easy…just choose the other printer in the slice screen when needed.
It’s an interesting suggestion. Fairly advanced use case so it will probably belong to the “Custom Settings” section. So maybe unbounding custom settings from slicer would be something worth looking at.
I am okay unbinding the slicer from the printer…I would not unbind the custom slice setting from the slicer. Slicers are still too different, and may converge or diverge it is hard to say…I might unbind material and slicer however I find these two are sensibly connected…in the current configuration I would like to be able to copy profiles but not a big deal.
I think having a default setup is the way to keep it easy and quick to use. there are some things that are just the default for a printer…bed shape max speeds nozzle size maybe. There are are other defaults that are common for slicers (kinda like the the normal, coarse and fine settings)…Then there are the many custom tweaks. I would suggest there be a configureable default for the printer and for the slicer and maybe for the filament, then a group of custom settings for each, much like it is now, but if you want to make the slicer choice available from the slice screen that makes sense.
The custom setting should work similar to how it does now, with all features available and filled with the default in a way that indicates it is a default and then able to be overridden or not. I would point you to MatterControl…It has a lot to recommend in particular their Visuals and MatterSlice engine which offers sometimes better path planning and I most like the triangular infill which prints as fast as rectangular and offers better support. The hex or oct patters in others seem slower with all the direction changes. HOWEVER, I find the MatterControl general interface too unbound, and a bit dis-joint which makes it hard to work with and know what is going on. I really tried to like it for several months but somehow it didn’t work for me…
In short adding a way to choose a slicer and slice profile in the slice screen seems reasonable but the general method of defaults and overrides as it is works well. The one thing I might consider is an overrides system/editor. Not sure how well this would work and might make it confusing like MatterControl but what I find is that 90% of the settings never change…I would like a way to have a small collection of settings (my choice) that just override my tweaked in custom setting…for instance my general setting often doesn’t change when I got to do a spiral print…it would be nice to just have spiral over-ride pop up…I choose the printer and slicer and filament and then select one or maybe more overrides from a short list (maybe check boxes) the issue become order of override so maybe 3 overrides can be chosen from there pop up lists and applied in order…What I am trying to avoid is my current iterative list of a dozen or so custom profiles whose names have to indicate what changes are made in each as compared to the previous.
Kinda hard to explain in words…maybe I can make a flowchart and mockup a screen or two while I am waiting for a print.