Action Commands

If you interact with your 3D printer using its display (touchscreen, LCD, or similar), you may be interested in action commands.

Action Commands are messages sent by the printer to OctoPrint when a user performs an action on the printer's display.

Standard Action Commands

OctoPrint supports several actions out of the box - see here for more details.

Proper handling of these commands by Continuous Print is still under development.

Your printer firmware must also support action commands for this to work (see Firmware Support for Action Commands below).

Custom actions for Continuous Print

Currently, the Continuous Print plugin supports a single custom action command:

// action:queuego

When received from the printer, this message instructs the Continuous Print plugin to start managing the queue - equivalent to clicking "Start Managing" on the UI.

This command is non-standard and requires additions to firmware - in particular, a custom menu entry must be added in CUSTOM_MENU_MAIN of Configuration_adv.h for Marlin firmware which issues a M118 //action:queuego command.

Firmware support for Action Commands

Not all printers support Action Commands - it depends on the firmware they're running. The easiest way to know if your printer supports action commands is to watch the Terminal tab in OctoPrint for occurrences of // action:<command>. If these appear e.g. when a print is cancelled from the printer's interface, then it's supported.

Adding support for action commands for your printer involves updating the printer's firmware, which is a device-specific process. Check for user-contributed firmwares which include this support - for Marlin-based firmwares for instance, you want to ensure HOST_ACTION_COMMANDS is defined in the firmware (see here).