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Stop Criteria re-visited

Hi, I wanted to revisit this request as it actually would save a lot of time I believe.


A stop criteria based on % efficiency, set length or perhaps parts nested? would be a very helpful addition - once the criteria was met, the files and nest report could also optionally be emailed.

This would mean that the user would set the criteria and walk away from the nest completely. He/she will be be able to carry on with other work and only alerted by email with the finished files so that further distribution or filing  of the job can be carried out.


This would save the continuous checking of the status of the nest job - plus, the computer uses less electricity when it has finished rather than running at full pelt when left overnight.

I believe it would be a very well used function. 


Hi Andrew,


Thanks for reaching out to us.


You can now set a max run time and a % efficiency target via the command line parameters.


To do this, you would launch NestFab from command line by:


nestfab -c 1000:80


where 1000 is the maximum number of seconds to run the nesting and 80 is the % efficiency target.  The two values are separated by ":".


You can also automatically export the DXF and a PDF of the report after the nesting has completed, this can be done using the command line parameter -o 


e.g.


nestfab -c 100:75 -o "c:\output\nest.dxf" "c:\output\nest.pdf"


this says that nesting can run for 100 seconds or until 75% efficiency is reached, then export the DXF and PDF report.


You can set up a .bat file on the desktop which you can change these values quickly.  To make a bat file, create a text file with the following contents and change the extension to .bat (from .txt):


cd "C:\Program Files\Efficient Software Ltd\NestFab v3"

@echo off

start /wait NestFab.exe -c 100:75 -o "c:\output\nest.dxf" "c:\output\nest.pdf"


When you double click the .bat file, NestFab will launch with these presets.  You can get fancy with variables in the bat file to make changing the values even easier but that is beyond the scope of my answer here.


I don't think we will ever support SMTP email servers but you could probably do this via the .bat file yourself (again, beyond the scope of my answer).


The full command line parameter list is available in the NestFab help documentation in the software (press F1).


Hope this gets you closer to what you want to do (and saves some electricity!).


Best regards,

Glenn


Hi Glenn, Thanks for the detailed response. Great, I'll have a play with that. Is there any plan to add these options to the gui? Re the smtp servers, no need surely, one could just enter their own smtp details? Thanks again.

Hi Andrew,


Unfortunately its not quite as simple as that as we would need to start storing email username and passwords and that would require a level of encryption to be secure, probably bring legal ICO considerations to the business too.  


If I am completely honest, I am not sure how many users would find email notifications from the software that beneficial.


Cheers,

Glenn

Hi Glenn - understood.


Many thanks for the advice on how to achieve this using a .bat etc.


Best regards, Andrew

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