As I was adding some new Bump sensors to my robot I got to thinking about a nice enhancement to the read digital port and set digital port windows. It would be nice to have mulitple digital ports in a single window on the ARC Desktop. This could eliminate lots of small windows on the desktop and allow the user to group digital ports with similar function together at the same time. As I add functions to my robot I find the ARC desktop getting more and more cluttered. I am worried about information overload. It is getting hard to see all of the ARC dialog boxes at once. As I get more of the robot scripted this may become less of an issue but as I debug it is important.

In theory you could combine the read and set digital ports as a single dialog box with the choice of read or write as a selection in the configuration and just present a square button as you do now for the set digital ports for all port types. For read ports the button would simply change color based on the state of the digital port and clicking the button would do nothing. For set ports the button would function as it is now . I am not sure this is the correct approach. A round indicator for read ports and square buttons for set ports is probably a better answer.

Just being able to group read digital ports and set digital ports together would be a big plus. I envision a window labeled "Bumpers" with two read port indicators the first would be port 4 with a label of "left rear" and a second be port 5 with a label of "right rear".

For set digital port groupings I envision a window labeled "Camera Ports" with two buttons. The first would be for port 2 with a button label of "Power". The second button would be port 3 with a button label of "Headlight" Clicking the button for port 2 would turn camera power on. Clicking port 3 button would turn on an LED to allow for better low light viewing. The camera I got as part of the ARC kit seems it could use a little help in low light conditions so I am thinking about adding an LED Headlight to my robot.