On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 12:57:06AM -0700, Terrypin via Discuss wrote:

As you (not addressing you, terry) can see, the users don't understand
the customizer and how saving works.

I'd object to writing changes in the original file: That's the original
file and should not be touched.

But allowing the user to save a "customized XXX" would be welcome.
Avoid duplicating data, so the customization file would have:

customization of <location of scad>
parameter1=...

etc.

When loading the parameters need to be matched to the scad file again,
and you need to do something when it doesn't match. But when the scad
is stable, then it becomes easy to save/archive different
configurations of an scad file as "printed on 21-03-2021" or "as sent
to shapeways jan 2 2021" or "uncle john's present 2021".

Roger. 

--
** R.E.Wolff@BitWizard.nl ** https://www.BitWizard.nl/ ** +31-15-2049110 **
**    Delftechpark 11 2628 XJ  Delft, The Netherlands.  KVK: 27239233    **
f equals m times a. When your f is steady, and your m is going down
your a is going up.  -- Chris Hadfield about flying up the space shuttle.

I personally don't want my source code overwritten. It contains the default
values, which never change.

On Mon, 12 Apr 2021 at 12:32, Terrypin via Discuss <
discuss@lists.openscad.org> wrote:

On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 04:32:09AM -0700, Terrypin via Discuss wrote:

Data duplication in whatever form is bad. Leads to all sorts of bad
stuff.

There should be as little "double data" as possible.

Computing environment example: 35 years ago as a young programmer I
took the easy way out: I could have added a parameter to a function
that would make it do a slight variation of what it was supposed to
do. Instead I copied the function and just changed what needed to be
changed. That bit me in the behind when a bug was found in the common
code between those now-two routines. Twice. (bug found and fixed, then
2 weeks later: Didn't I fix this bug before? Same symptoms!)

"real world" example:

I've moved my company. So I notified the bank: I've moved, this is the
new address.

All is fine I get the statements at the new address and
everything. Then... (2.5 years after the move!) I notice my creditcard
has expired. When I call them, it turns out the creditcard division is
"separate enough from the bank" to have their own
addresses-database. Not updated from the main bank-database.They
probably mailed me the new card at the old address. That card is still
floating around somewhere.

So you saving the whole file under a new name causes data duplication:
A bug that you might find in the original will now need fixing is all
the variants you've made!

Nop head has explained why overwriting the defaults in the main source
file is not a good idea.

Roger.

--
** R.E.Wolff@BitWizard.nl ** https://www.BitWizard.nl/ ** +31-15-2049110 **
**    Delftechpark 11 2628 XJ  Delft, The Netherlands.  KVK: 27239233    **
f equals m times a. When your f is steady, and your m is going down
your a is going up.  -- Chris Hadfield about flying up the space shuttle.

I'm a bit puzzled by this whole conversation. Maybe it's because I'm a
software developer, but the idea that the Customizer would make changes
that get applied and saved to/with the source code is completely foreign to
me. My mental model is: the GUI opens the source file, parses it and builds
an in-memory AST. The Customizer is a sort of backdoor into this, i.e.
anything you change there, is applied to specific nodes in the AST. Then
the model is rendered and that is what you see. But, if you would want to
save the AST with the changes applied, you would have to keep a bunch of
information that is (I presume, I never looked at OpenSCAD source code)
lost to the software after parsing (like comments and whitespace).
'Compiling' source code is a one-way street. Yes, there are IDE's that try
to intelligently help you with inserting code, sometimes based on
information derived from compiling the source; but not by serializing a
modified abstract representation of that code. The Customizer is not a tool
that edits source code; it's a convenient way of building simple GUI's for
parametric models (at least, this is how I as a relatively novice user see
it, not trying to claim universal truths here).

Again, I'm probably brain damaged by being a developer for 20 years to the
point where I am no longer able to really empathize with the way others see
source code or some other things in software in general, but maybe it would
help you to not see the Customizer as a tool to 'edit' models, but only as
one to 'customize' existing models. In this model it makes much more sense
to have separate 'presets' that are distinct from the source code itself.

cheers

Roel

PS on the other topic of this thread - for me the big advantages of using
an external editor are 1) that I can use the more powerful editor I use for
everything else to also edit OpenSCAD models/source code, and 2) I can have
that editor on another monitor and have more preview screen real estate for
the OpenSCAD GUI on another monitor.

On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 1:32 PM Terrypin via Discuss <
discuss@lists.openscad.org> wrote:

On 4/12/2021 1:14 AM, Terrypin via Discuss wrote:

I don't know about the forum, but on the mailing list you come through
as "Terrypin via Discuss", with a CC of "Terrypin
T.pinnell@btinternet.com".

(And the Reply-To is set to the mailing list... evil, evil, evil.)

On 4/12/2021 5:10 AM, Roel Vanhout wrote:

I don't think there's any chance that a beginner will think of it in
terms of the AST.

Yes, I think those are the right mental model.

Edit / Preferences / Advanced, check "Enable undocking of Editor and
Console to separate windows".  If you have a lot of screen real estate,
it's the only way to fly.