Just thought I’d mention it anonys me that you can’t do anything, even check for updates, in MM without setting up a project.
I haven’t useed it in 2 months, so I opened it today expecting to get a notice to update the the latest veresion like LB would. Only I didn’t, I just got the dialog to setup a project with no way to “bypass” it. It just seems weird to me that I can’t even check for updates without setting up a new project.
I believe there’s a technical reason behind this, but Ive asked internally for clarification
Currently we don’t have a set “page size” like we do in LightBurn. We could make MillMage start with a default or empty page, but then 99% of the time you’d just go to File > Project Setup and edit it immediately. The enforced workflow is similar to other CNC router software in the space.
Because there are default entries, if you just press enter or repeatedly click ok you basically get the default project.
I’ll log this as a feature idea internally though. Thanks for the comment!
was discussed few months ago about having stock pre-sets in project set up , so we can save various stock sizes as. 100x 100 is just way to small
also being able to save the machine safe clearance, retraction and lift height,
is this still being looked at or thrown on back burner
TY. Most apps though let you do some basic things, like see “About Millmage”, check for updates, etc without an active document open. I don’t get why a active document/page/project setup needs to exist to get to things like that, but also understand there is likely shared code/tooling between LB/MM that might require this.
Also related, see linked video, CleanShot 2025-10-23 at 07.52.22 · CleanShot Cloud but this flow is really bad:
Open Recent Project (or presumably create a new one).
Go to File menu and click New (new project dialog pops up in advanced mode)
PROBLEM: There is no way to dismiss this dialog and go back to the already open project.
Clicking the red X close doesn’t just close the dialog; it pops up a notice threatening to close MillMage entirely. Clicking NO just puts one back on the project setup dialog, not back in the project. Clicking yes, closes MillMage entirely 
Apologies to turning this into a long rant thread, not my intention, but the advanced setup is pretty bad UI as well. I get wanting to show everything in one place, but “OPEN” should be a button I can click or tab to, not a note explaining one needs to double click. Maybe Recent projects should be a seperate tab in the same dialog and be the default tab as personally I’m way more often accessing a recent project than setting up a new one. ((Recent Projects) (Setup New Project)).
Not quite the same thing, but I’ve come to really like the way FreeCAD handles this with a “home page” that has default project setups you can then choose from. SketchUp and F360 both do something similar as I recall. Anyway, MillMage might benefit from something similar, where there is a default getting-started page, but we could also save default project setups like 100x100x6mm, 400x400x12mm, 39.3701x39.3701x1in, etc…. At least then I could quick select one of those instead of clicking through 7 dialogs (Beginner setup), which has to be overwhelming to first-time users.
Something like this
I know RC7 is late for suggestions like this, but hopefully still helpful
@Colin I know things can get lost in long threads, but wanted ot make sure you saw the bug report above (linked video) regarding not being able to close the setup dialog without closing the app.
Hi Jon, yes, I saw the video - this is the intended workflow. You can open a file that is pre-existing, or use the project setup wizard to start a new one. If you close the project setup wizard, we presume you do not intend to start a new project, or open an existing one, thus close MillMage.
We provide the warning so that if this isn’t what you intended to do, you can change your mind.
MillMage requires a project to operate, full stop, so you can open one with the pre-input settings and change them later, or open an existing template. Can you describe your ideal workflow in detail?
Thanks, Colin.
I just want to be clear what I’m reporting here.
I do understand you can’t have MM open without an active project and so on intial open if you don’t open and existing project or set one up you have to close MM. This is different, this is being unable to go back to the project one already had open that they were working on. In the case a project was open when a new one was clicked, there ought to be an option to close the dialog and go back to the already open project. ie. “Oh… I don’t want to set up a NEW project, I just want to keep working on what I was doing”.
What one can do is select the current project from the recent projects, but that’s a non-obvious workaround to standard UI behavior.
Makes sense. “I just clicked on New by accident.” If a window has a red X, that X should only close the window it is in. I would call this a Windows standard and expected behaviour.
