[Artless Gauge Features] I need second (and third...) opinion

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I have ongoing discussion in git about the feature request and I'm a little bit lost.

I have doubts is it worth of doing at all or is there some things I just cant imagine how to provide the requested functionality.
Maybe if somebody with some interest can wide up this topic with fresh ideas, I can get more confidence to choose the way to go with it.

Feel free to share your opinion here or in git page.

Thank you in advance.

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I have to say that I agree with both points raised by kais0r as I've noticed them myself, but have not raised an issue (because I've already raised so many with you!!).

I've found the range marks visually confusing, and to avoid this, I've just deleted them on some charts, where the value can go negative, which is unfortunate.
IMO the range marks should be split and handled differently dependent upon if the setting is positive or negative

If the gauge is to display data linearly, then surely the negative range scaling should be the same as the positive range scaling. This of course means that with a chart ranging -100 & +500, the zero point will not be mid way, and I wouldn't expect it to be.

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Off topic

My big NO to this behavior. How the hell the world can be better place tomorrow then? :roll_eyes: Every touch is counted in. Nothing moves without push.

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Ha ha, I've caught you in a good mood tonight :wink:

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Good debate... - I think there is definitely a need for something based around 0. Whether it is a third mode (select rather than checkbox) is a question, or is it a weird extra on top of differential ? If it were to be a zero mode I would expect to see a zero tick mark even if I didn't see max and min.

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So something I did. You can move the cross point when in differential mode. Freely.
Before to publish, Id like to get some comments.
Install from git https://github.com/hotNipi/node-red-contrib-ui-artless-gauge

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That's a nice solution for the range issue @hotnipi and that now works as I would expect, and appears more natural.
Do you think that there should be a 'default value = 0', which I assume would be the most popular setting, and be a good starting point for somebody new to the node?

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Node is prepared to fallback to midpoint value if there is no value or if value is out of range or somehow corrupted. So that default 0 will force in wrong direction maybe? and what if 0 is out of range?

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What about the wording here - I thing the "center" is confusing cos in real life it pushes that point out of center. But as always I'm out of terms

image

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'Baseline point'?

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Functionality looks good to me...
In the menu - maybe move Mode below Range ? (then you could potentially auto set zero if min is changed to below 0 and max above ? :wink:
I guess you could call the centre the "null point" - but not sure everyone would understand that.

Also for me the boxes look like - so I can't read the labels.... not sure how that width is calculated may may need to default larger if possible.
image

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Label problem is known and gets it's fix in NR next release
Those are Min and Max you see partially

Well I managed to hold min and max always in editableList, but I can't see how the order changes the thing here. Configuration is done at the moment the user decides to press the Done button. Until then all the values are free to change...

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V0.1.25 published.

  • Adjustable center value for differential mode

  • Fixed low-end dot colors for differential mode

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Hi Paul-Reed and hotNipi,
since you are encouraging other members opinion about the differential mode behaviour I must say that I second Paul-Reed's opinion. With asymmetrical negative and positive extremes the scaling in both ranges should be the same. Therefore the Zero point should be placed proportionally. IThis problem arises with exchanged power energy meter where the max consumed energy in kW (negative values) may be different from the positive max produced energy .
As an example you might want to have a minimum of -3KW and a maximum of 6 KW. The zero in this case should be place one third from left. As a user I would be puzzled and perplexed in seeing the zero placed exactly in the middle, because in this case the scaling for negative values would be different than for positive ones and this is not what you expect: 1kW consumed energy must have the same "optical weight" of 1 kW produced energy, not different because of a different scaling.

Additionaly I would like to have the 0 point clearly marked in the gauge. AFAIK, at least in version 0.1.28 that I'm using, "0" symbol is not displayed, only a very thin, almost invisible, vertical mark is used.

A final request: minimum and maximum values should, as an option, be displayed as well.
Having said that I once again would like to thank hotNipi for his fantastic node.

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Hi hotNipi,
please disregard my final request about displaying min and max value. I upgraded to 0.1.28, but didn't notice the added option. Many thanks for having added this feature.

For me node behaviour is perfect only when negative and positive values are the same. If they differ the behaviour is not what I'm expecting. Positive values are always drawn for the center, but the center is not "zero", but a positive value.
In my case I set minimum = -4 and maximum= 8. In this case in the middle I see a "2" value.
Still not clear how the "center" option can be used. I tried many figures, still the bars are drawn from the center and not, as I was expecting from a differently located zero tick.
What I'm suggesting here is that the zero location would simply be put proportionally in the space from the minimum and maximum values. Again if minimum is -4 and maximum 8 I would expect zero would be located one third from left minimum value. Sorry for being repetitive, but this is the final touch to an already perfect node.

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With configuration like this
image

You should see something like this
image

If no, clear browser cache, and if still no changes see if there is errors in browser console.

PS. I just realized that center value is forced to nearest integer. I will need to fix this some day.

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Hhmm, it looks natural to me

artless

The line starts at 0 and it looks visually balanced.

I would however prefer the zero point to display the actual value, and not the Unit. The unit should be really be a suffix to the current value (6Watts).

Then it would add perspective to the scale

artless2
artless2

EDIT - sorry @hotNipi you posted whilst I was writing!

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I have been thinking about this. It can be placed after the value field but for me it unbalances the graphical layout, so I left it out. Can be changed..

And then it forces to make some decisions how to provide small texts configuration option all together.

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Is that because you've used a larger font size for the value (1.6em) than the font size of the Label (1.2em)

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Yess, I had to convert the layout from linear to gauge and viceversa and now zero is correctly located and the drawing starts from zero. Well done hotNipi!

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