I'm interested in having a command line way to make an interactive preview
window for a given .scad file. My use case is to enhance the Intellij plugin
to allow quick rendering of a file you're editing in Intellij. I expect to
have to build this myself.

I'm imagining a separate command line app that will create a running app
separate than any existing OpenSCAD instances. This app will not have nearly
as much interactivity as the main OpenSCAD app - for example, it wouldn't
have an editor window, nor any ability to load/save/export files. I also
don't think it should have a console window; any console output during the
parsing/rendering process should go to stdout, because Intellij has its own
console pane.

I couldn't find a way to do this cleanly with existing functionality. If
this already exists, I'd love for someone to tell me not to try. I'd also
accept words of encouragement or advice on how to accomplish this. (I'm a
developer, but not in this codebase.)

Thanks, Sean

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I suppose you want to have this preview AND be able to use the OpenSCAD GUI
at the same time?
If you don't, you can hide the console and editor (view menu), use
auto-reload & preview (design menu), as tp mentioned. So when you save the
file in the IDE, the preview is refreshed.
I sometimes do that, it works OK.

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Hm, ideally, I think we should be able to have this preview and the OpenSCAD
GUI open at the same time. But that might be a nice to have, rather than a
strict requirement.

I'll look into your suggestion, maybe that will be an easy way to achieve
what I want. I've had problems with the auto-reloading not being as reliable
as I would have expected, but maybe the first step is to reliably reproduce
that and debug.

@tp3 - thanks for the thoughts. I'd imagine the command line call (if its
really necessary, per your point) to be as simple as something like:

/path/openscad-preview main-file.scad

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Thanks - I tried that and it worked well. I didn't understand how to
accomplish what I wanted; now that I do, I doubt I'll ever actually do this.
(Unless I really, really want a window that I can embed inside Intellij)

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