Hi Stefan,
I would appreciate any code polishing that you are interested to perform, especially ones that help to remove fixed factors that should be changeable. However, please keep in mind that our primary concern in “official” Eggbot driver software is reliability– and we have in the past gone so far as to remove features that reduced reliability.
There are a great many improvements that are possible. However, we have made the decision to implement the Eggbot software within the framework of an Inkscape extension, which does have some (well, many) restrictions on what is possible.
The Eggbot control software has, at times past, included separate file saving and reading capabilities, and live buttons to control manual movements. However, we were also plagued by poor reliability, and (especially) poor cross-platform compatibility. I am the one that made the decision to strip the software down to be a “real” Inkscape extension, and it has had a very positive effect in that the software is generally quite reliable. However, I do also feel quite limited by it, and we have often thought of using an entirely different approach.
The GUI for the extension is defined in the .inx file; only a few types of GUI elements are possible, and (most unfortunately) only the “Apply” button can actually launch the program. There are some possibilities for how to get around this– for example, one might imagine an extension that puts the Eggbot into “live arrow key” mode, until you hit the escape key. Or, one could use the Extension framework to launch an independent program (e.g., RoboPaint, in its Eggbot painting mode), rather than a “true” Inkscape extension.
