SolidPython VS fswatch

https://github.com/SolidCode/SolidPython --- apparently there's a fork as a v2 which is to be preferred

Then use SolidPython to generate the scad files. ;)

I wonder how many OpenSCAD wrappers now exist? I know of scad-clj [0], openpyscad [1], and solidpython [2].

I particularly like scad-clj, because of `lein auto generate`. It watches source files, and regenerates the OpenSCAD files automatically, which OpenSCAD then also picks up. Although I'm not well versed in Clojure, and find debugging Clojure tricky, the workflow is just so good.

[0] https://github.com/farrellm/scad-clj

[1] https://github.com/taxpon/openpyscad

[2] https://github.com/SolidCode/SolidPython

Also, if it’s screw threads you’re after, there may just be some faster (== non-minkowski) ways to do that. OpenSCAD calculates polyhedrons much faster than big unions of parts. Buut, OpenSCAD also kinda sucks for doing vector math. I wrote SolidPython to get around some of the constrictions of OpenSCAD, and the screw_thread utility method should render decently detailed threads (120 segments per revolution, say) in a few seconds.

This sub is understandably enthusiastic about the OpenSCAD language, but I’m with you in preferring existing general purpose languages. For browser-enabled Python & OpenSCAD, check out ViewSCAD, or for basic Python, see my SolidPython

Or even better, fswatch (https://github.com/emcrisostomo/fswatch) which works on Linux, BSDs, macOS, Windows, and even Solaris

If you don’t mind shell shell scripting you can use something like fswatch and some shell logic to do something similar.

Well, I am not too lazy to search but I was interested in your experience, especially with reliability.

This one looks interesting: https://github.com/emcrisostomo/fswatch

What about using https://github.com/emcrisostomo/fswatch ?

The required kernel hooks exist in pretty much any common OS these days, it is a user-space tool that is sometimes missing.

It may not be installed by default, but inotifywait is available in common Linux distributions, usually in a package called something like ionotify-tools, and has been for over a decade-ana-half IIRC. It'll work under WSL on Windows too, though only for ext4 devices not bits of the Windows filesystem made available to Linux.

I can't speak to what other OSs include by default, but as every major OS has a different API for defining how to register a lister and how it gets messages no built-in tool is going to be cross platform. There are third party tools which present more cross-platform consistency, most notably https://github.com/emcrisostomo/fswatch#readme (also available in common Linux distros, just an apt install away in Debian for instance).

> It watches source files, and regenerates the OpenSCAD files automatically

inotify() is awesome. Here's a library in python that does it.

https://michaelcho.me/article/using-pythons-watchdog-to-moni...

There's also inotifywatch on linux and fswatch on mac. I'm sure there's alternatives for BSD Unix and Windows, but I care the least about those OS's.

https://github.com/emcrisostomo/fswatch

This setup uses the fswatch utility. If you want to adapt it for your own use, this is the key bit: fswatch -0 -o $YOUR_FILES | while read -d "" event ; do runscript done where runscript is a shell function to run the program (compile it too if necessary) and $YOUR_FILES are shell globs that match the files you want to watch.

Background jobs and watching file for changes with fswatch

I had good luck with fswatch last time I did something like this. Same principle as what /u/balloonanimalfarm links, but it's cross-platform. It also uses the inotify API on linux, but others on different OSes.

Theoretically, you could use something like fswatch and make a simple one-liner like fswatch ~/Desktop | xargs -I{} cp {} ~/caught-files