HOWTO: compile mdraw for windows

#1

Hello,

We’re all encountering a lot of problems with mdraw (crashes, svg loading at incorrect scale, limit sensors not enabled, motors forcing off limits…) and it’s known that makeblock won’t finish the development and refuses to fix the problems.

I’d love to look at the code and try to fix some of these issues, since the plotter is still an amazing project, despite the poor support, but I don’t know where to start.

Could anyone help me to understand how to compile to github code ?
Any hints / direction / tutorial would be awesome…

Best,
Joanie

Python bug in mDraw
mDraw distorting SVG dimensions
#2

@tec_support a simple tutorial telling how mdraw can be compiled would be awesome ! :wink:

#3

Hi Joanie,

Though I hope I can help, but for compiling the mDraw software, it is really beyond my ability to support. Sorry for this! Hope some programmers can help.

#4

Thanks for your prompt reply ! Do you know anyone at @makeblock who could help ?

#5

Hi Joanie,

Sorry, I am afraid that I don’t since the mDraw won’t be maintained anymore and all our R&D guys are on their projects. You may try put a question on the pull request on our Github page, sometimes, the R&D guys may browse on Github.

#6

Thats awful support…

I understand you team is busy, but how come they are not available for existing products ??? Plotters are still on the market and in shops, how can you abandon your customers ?

You make great products, but it s such a shame you guys don t understand the sense of customer support.

@tec_support @makeblock

#7

Any update here ?
I’m happy to look into the code, but we’d need instructions on how to recompile mdraw…
thanks

#8

I’ve stuck a brief note on how to compile mDraw in the other post where you also asked the question. (And after realising how the forum lists the recent posts I’ve stuck the same advice as a follow-up to this post).

In defence of tech_support, this is what happens with free software, the end-user assumes many of the responsibilities that previously the software developer would have been expected to shoulder. The source code for mDraw contains all the files needed to re-compile it, provided you have adjusted your python distribution to add in some of the required libraries, such as py2exe.

In defence of the user, it does require quite a lot of reading and learning to understand how python does this. Still, it’s free, so everybody wins. I think.

I remember when ignorance was bliss and bliss was a programming language.

#9

the command to built mDraw is, from a dos box with working directory set to MdrawGui :slight_smile:

py -3.4 -m setup.py py2exe

This creates the executable under the dist folder. The bundle setting inside setup.py controls the copying in of required dlls. I believe I used 0 to try and get everything into a single EXE.

You will need to possibly add py2exe to your python installation, which needs to be 3.3 (4?) or higher. You might also find you have to add libraries such as pyserial. The simple way for all of this is to use PIP. If you are going to modify any of the GUIs you obviously need to install PyQt5, and convert the new forms to python modules using ui2py

Look through setup.py to get a feel for what the built options are and how it works, and you will probably have to read up a bit on py2exe to understand how it uses setup.py to control the operation.

#10