Embroidermodder is a free machine embroidery application. The newest version, Embroidermodder 2 can:
- edit and create embroidery designs
- estimate the amount of thread and machine time needed to stitch a design
- convert embroidery files to a variety of formats
- upscale or downscale designs
- run on Windows, Mac and Linux
For more information, see our website.
Embroidermodder 2 is very much a work in progress since we're doing a ground up rewrite to an SDL2 GUI. The reasoning for this is detailed in the issues tab.
To see what we're focussing on at the moment check this table.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Feb 2022 | An overview of what has changed will be written up for the website as a news update, along with better documentation of libembroidery. |
| Feb-April | Finish the FreeGLUT 3 conversion |
| April-May 2022 | Finish all the targets in the Design, or assign them to 2.1. |
| May-June 2022 | Bugfixing, Testing, QA. libembroidery 1.0 will be released, then updates will slow down and the Embroidermodder 2 development version will be fixed to the API of this version. |
| Summer Solstice (21st of June) 2022 | Embroidermodder 2 is officially released. |
| July 2022 | News and Documentation work for Embroidermodder 2 |
We're currently working on a "nightly" build see:
To build Embroidermodder 2 from source run:
./build.sh --get-dependencies
Windows supports Bash out of the box now, but if you don't have it turned on there is a batch file with the same commands.
Assuming you have the above dependancies these commands should build embroidermodder
./build.sh
with the install argument it will also install the program to user space
./build.sh --install
The documentation is in the form of the website (included in the docs/
directory) and the printed docs in the three files:
- docs/libembroidery_0.1_manual.pdf
- docs/embroidermodder_1.90.0_user_manual.pdf
- docs/embroidermodder_1.90.0_developer_notes.pdf.
If you wish to develop with us you can chat via the contact email on the website or in the issues tab on the github page. People have been polite and friendly in these conversations and I (Robin) have really enjoyed them. If we do have any arguments please note we have a Code of Conduct so there is a consistent policy to enforce when dealing with these arguments.
In order to simplify the development of a GUI that is flexible and easy to understand to new developers we have a custom action system that all user actions will go via.
The C action_hash_data struct will contain: the icon used, the labels for the
menus and tooltips and the function pointer for that action.
There will be an accompanying argument for this function call, currently being
drafted as action_call. So when the user makes a function call it should
contain information like the mouse position, whether special key is pressed
etc.
So there should be a way of getting the callbacks like:
void spinBoxGridSizeXValueChanged(double);
void spinBoxGridSizeYValueChanged(double);
void spinBoxGridSpacingXValueChanged(double);
void spinBoxGridSpacingYValueChanged(double);
to go through the same system. Also the statusbar buttons with callbacks like:
void toggleSnap(bool on);
void toggleGrid(bool on);
Software can be more or less friendly to people with dylexia, partial sightedness, reduced mobility and those who don't speak English. Embroidermodder 2 has, in its design, the following features to help:
- icons for everything to reduce the amount of reading required
- the system font is configurable: if you have a dyslexia-friendly font you can load it
- the interface rescales to help with partial-sightedness
- the system language is configurable, unfortunately the docs will only be in English but we can try to supply lots of images of the interface to make it easier to understand as a second language
- buttons are remappable: XBox controllers are known for being good for people with reduced mobility so remapping the buttons to whatever setup you have should help
Note that most of these features will be released with version 2.1, which is planned for around early 2023.
We're working on an FreeGLUT 3 version of the library that will require no non-standard dependencies not included in the source.
On systems where you use --build-dependencies the system will
build and install the libraries if they are not already present
from the versions in extern/. This way a copy of
the Embroidermodder 2 source code
on a machine with a build environment can be built without a connection
to the internet access and insures against FreeGLUT 3 going out of support.
- Converting C++ to C throughout.
- All comments to multiline
/* C-style comments */. - Replace variables with variables of C or libembroidery type. (QColor to EmbColor, QPointF to EmbVector)
- Reduce the reliance on Qt functions while allowing boot of the program.
- Turn settings into array type, to aid read/write in loops.
- QCheckBoxes into an array to simplify
Settings_Dialog::createTabOpenSave.
- All comments to multiline
- OpenGL Rendering
- "Real" rendering to see what the embroidery looks like.
- Icons and toolbars.
- Menu bar
- Libembroidery interfacing:
- Get all classes to use the proper libembroidery types within them.
So
EllipseObjecthasEmbEllipseas public data within it. - Move calculations of rotation and scaling into
EmbVectorcalls.
- Get all classes to use the proper libembroidery types within them.
So
- Get undo history widget back (BUG).
- Switch website to a CMake build.
- GUI frontend for embroider features that aren't supported by embroidermodder: flag selector from a table
- Update all formats without color to check for edr or rgb files.
- EmbroideryFLOSS - Color picker that displays catalog numbers and names
- Setting for reverse scrolling direction (for zoom, vertical pan)
- Stitching simulation
- User designed custom fill
- Keyboard zooming, panning
- Advanced printing
- Libembroidery 1.0
- Better integrated help: I don't think the help should backend to a html file somewhere on the user's system. A better system would be a custom widget within the program that's searchable.
- New embroidermodder2.ico 16x16 logo that looks good at that scale.
- saving dst, pes, jef
- Settings dialog: notify when the user is switching tabs that the setting has been changed, adding apply button is what would make sense for this to happen.
- Update language translations
- Replace KDE4 thumbnailer.
- Import raster image
- Statistics from 1.0, needs histogram.
- SNAP/ORTHO/POLAR
- Cut/copy allow post-selection
- Layout into config
- Notify user of data loss if not saving to an object format.
- Add which formats to work with to preferences.
- Cannot open file with # in the name when opening multiple files but works with opening a single file.
- Closing settings dialog with the X in the window saves settings rather than discarding them.
- Otto theme icons: units, render, selectors, what's this icon doesn't scale
- Layer manager and Layer switcher dock widget
- test that all formats read data in correct scale (format details should match other programs).
- Custom filter bug -- doesn't save changes in some cases.
For more details read on into the Design section.
Various sample embroidery design files can be found in the embroidermodder2/samples folder.
These are key bits of reasoning behind why the software is built the way it is.
| ID | Name | Arguments | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | newfile | none | Create a new EmbPattern with a new tab in the GUI. |
| 1 | openfile | char *fname; |
Open an EmbPattern with the supplied filename fname. |
| 2 | savefile | char *fname; |
Save the current loaded EmbPattern to the supplied filname fname. |
| 1 | scale | selected objects, 1 float | Scale all selected objects by the number supplied, without selection scales the entire design |
| 2 | circle | mouse co-ords | Adds a circle to the design based on the supplied numbers, converts to stitches on save for stitch only formats. |
| 3 | offset | mouse co-ords | Shifts the selected objects by the amount given by the mouse co-ordinates. |
| 4 | extend | ||
| 5 | trim | ||
| 6 | BreakAtPoint | ||
| 7 | Break2Points | ||
| 8 | Fillet | ||
| 9 | star | ||
| 10 | singlelinetext | ||
| 11 | Chamfer | ||
| 12 | split | ||
| 13 | area | ||
| 14 | time | ||
| 15 | pickadd | ||
| 16 | zoomfactor | ||
| 17 | product | ||
| 18 | program | ||
| 19 | zoomwindow | ||
| 20 | divide | ||
| 21 | find | ||
| 22 | record | ||
| 23 | playback | ||
| 24 | rotate | ||
| 25 | rgb | ||
| 26 | move | ||
| 27 | grid | ||
| 28 | griphot | ||
| 29 | gripcolor | ||
| 30 | gripcool | ||
| 31 | gripsize | ||
| 32 | highlight | ||
| 33 | units | ||
| 34 | locatepoint | ||
| 35 | distance | ||
| 36 | arc | ||
| 37 | ellipse | ||
| 38 | array | ||
| 39 | point | ||
| 40 | polyline | ||
| 41 | polygon | ||
| 42 | rectangle | ||
| 43 | line | ||
| 44 | arc (rt) | ||
| 45 | dolphin | ||
| 46 | heart |
So I've had a few pieces of web infrastructure fail me recently and I think it's worth noting. An issue that affects us is an issue that can effect people who use our software.
In development we attempted using googletests. Googletests require a web connection to update and they update on each compilation.
gtests are non-essential, testing is for developers not users so we can choose our own framework. I think the in-built testing for libembroidery was good and I want to re-instate it.
Downloading and installing Qt has been a pain for some users (46Gb on possibly slow connections).
I'm switching to FreeGLUT 3 (which is a whole other conversation) which means we can ship it with the source code package meaning only a basic build environment is necessary to build it.
Github is giving me a server offline (500) error and is still giving a bad ping.
So... all the issues and project boards etc. being on Github is all well and good assuming that we have our own copies. But we don't if Github goes down or some other major player takes over the space and we have to move (again, since this started on SourceForge).
This file is a backup for that which is why I'm repeating myself between them.
The documentation is, well better in that it's housed in the main repository, but I'm not a fan of the "write once build many" approach as it means trying to weigh up how 3 versions are going to render.
Can we treat the website being a duplicate of the docs a non-starter? I'd be happier with tex/pdf only and (I know this is counter-intuitive) one per project.
OpenGL rendering within the application. This will allow for Realistic Visualization - Bump Mapping/OpenGL/Gradients?
Ok this is changing slightly. embroidermodder should boot from the command line
regardless of whether it is or is not installed (this helps with testing and
running on machines without root). Therefore, it can create an initiation file
but it won't rely on its existence to boot: this is what we currently do with settings.ini.
- Switch colors to be stored as 6 digit hexcodes with a #.
- We've got close to a hand implemented ini read/write setup in
settings.c.
- Mac Bundle
.tar.gzand.zipsource archive.- NSIS installer for Windows
- Debian package
- RPM package
Originally Embroidermodder had a terminal widget, this is why we removed it.
ROBIN: I think supporting scripting within Embroidermodder doesn't make sense.
All features that use scripting can be part of libembroidery instead. Users who are capable of using scripting won't need it, they can alter their embroidery files in CSV format, or import pyembroidery to get access. It makes maintaining the code a lot more complicated, especially if we move away from Qt. Users who don't want the scripting feature will likely be confused by it, since we say that's what libembroidery, embroider and pyembroidery are for.
How about a simpler "call user shell" feature? Similar to texmaker we just call system on a batch or shell script supplied by the user and it processes the file directly then the software reloads the file. Then we aren't parsing it directly.
I don't want to change this without Josh's support because it's a fairly major change.
JOSH: I totally agree.
I like the idea of scripting just so people that know how to code could write their own designs without needing to fully build the app. Scripting would be a very advanced feature that most users would be confused by. Libembroidery would be a good fit for advanced features.
- Check for memory leaks
- Clear compiler warnings on
-Wall -ansi -pedanticfor C. - Get Embroidermodder onto the current version of libembroidery.
https://developer.android.com/studio/projects/add-native-code
apt install google-android-ndk-installer cmake lldb gradle