It's the little things… (Patreon)

This video demonstrates the new marquee scrolling feature. I'm sure this style of scrolling is included in some versions of Marlin out there, but oh well, I just implemented it today for inclusion in Marlin 1.1.4 (coming soon) because it's the little things that I feel like working on right now.

Well, that… and the previous scrolling that I did for 1.1.3 just resets the message back to the start when it reaches the end of the available space. It's hard to follow and needed a-fixin'.

(The scrolling speed is set by the Info Screen update speed.)

It reminds me of your dad's Pioneer stereo, circa 1982.

Back to Basics

Now that we have a handler for a long scrolling line, we can use the same technique in the SD card file list so you can read the currently-selected filename. This is all probably standard UI stuff for small LCDs, but that's the point. Right now after a major release is a good time to take a step back and focus on the basics, polish the chrome, dust the woodwork…

Marlin Sushi

Marlin is an amazing jalopy of interconnected systems, and while it chugs along amazingly well it was not originally made to be extensible — at least not to the extent that today's sea of add-ons demands. And you really need to know it intimately to avoid the pitfalls.

After the 1.1 release (hurrah!) I went crazy on the Marlin website and finished the G-codes section over some long weekends. Now I'm focusing on patching up, optimizing, and re-organizing the code —to the eternal annoyance of some!— and trying to make sure nothing goes in that's half done. We have two big ticket items: Hierarchical file reorganization and 32-bit support, and everything else has to cease while we put those together. It's never a good time, is it?

Steering an open source project is not an easy thing, as it turns out. There's no central master control, broadcast center, or "brakes" that anyone can put on the flow of contributions and patches, at least not as long as everything is done in an ad-hoc manner.

The Dream Team

We welcomed two new Owner-contributors last month, and this has been a challenge to my prior code hegemony. It used to be easy to track new code and make sure it was ready, and people generally didn't mind waiting for things to get merged since I would always help them along. I got used to being the main gatekeeper on code quality, and I only had one other person with privileges to coordinate with, so I knew all that was going on.

But since the 1.1.0 release contributions and issue reports have been flooding in. We needed more help to deal with the extra inflow, so this is how it goes. You try giving out more privileges and hope that solves the glut. But you have to set the direction, get on the same page, and so on. Raise your swords, Knights of the Round Printbed, for tomorrow we ride to ARMlandia!

I will soon put up a "Project Direction" post in the Issue Queue to create a point of coordination for the next couple of weeks. I've also just fired up the IRC chat software and plan to keep it running pretty often. Look for me in the #marlin-firmware room and say "hello!"