caterpillar wrote > This thread reminds me of one reason why I like to use OpenSCAD and what > dotSCAD recently focuses on. I rewrite the short description for it: > > - Reduce the burden of 3D modeling in mathematics. I understand and appreciate this description as your basic intention. But this description is quite vague, so I think a new user really doesn't understand what this means at all. Something more about *how* the burden is reduced seems necessary. A year ago my understanding of what was even possible in OpenSCAD was dramatically limited. I just had no idea that certain kinds of things could be done, and certainly no idea how they could be done. -- Sent from: http://forum.openscad.org/

tp3 wrote > People should at least be aware that there are libraries > out there and have a chance to look for themselves. So > far the OpenSCAD web site did not do a good job at that. I think the libraries link on the site is good. There is actually this link in the "user manual" section: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/Libraries This link then links to yet another list of libraries, which repeats some and lists some new ones. It's kind of a mess. But also I do not think I found this link when I was learning OpenSCAD, hence my question posted a few months back of "where are the libraries?" I think the "user manual" did not appear very helpful so I had not examined it carefully and I was reading the language reference, which never mentions the existence of any libraries. Would it make sense to do one or both of: * Add a link in the language reference section 9 to the libraries page * Add a small number of examples of using existing real libraries to do something that is really hard without the library (and where the examples are short and simple) I went back and was looking at the "user manual" some more. In other cases I think of the "user manual" as being something like a tutorial, the better place to start learning the language, whereas the "language reference" is the complete, but terse description of all language functions. In the case of OpenSCAD, the "user manual" seems that it cannot really be digested until one has read the "language reference". So what I think of as the normal convention is not exactly followed here. This observation for me strengthens the idea that it might be reasonable to add some more content about libraries to the "language reference". > Yes, so maybe one of the plus points for adding a library > to the list would be the report by someone "I've used that > in a project of mine and it was great" vs. just "I found > that link in a 5 years old reddit thread. This seems like a reasonable criterion. I suppose if there was a simple way to let people vote that they like a library that might also be good, but I suspect this is not feasible. (I don't mean a one-time round of voting on the forum, but some automatic system where people could "like" a library. I am guessing this is probably not feasible...as there would have to be a way to prevent multiple votes from the same person, so it seems complex.) -- Sent from: http://forum.openscad.org/

I will throw my hat into the ring with this: https://github.com/nophead/NopSCADlib This is what I use to make all my OpenSCAD projects and my reason for publishing it is so I can blog projects that use it, because I don't have any stand alone code nowadays. On Mon, 3 Jun 2019 at 03:49, adrianv <avm4@cornell.edu> wrote: > tp3 wrote > > People should at least be aware that there are libraries > > out there and have a chance to look for themselves. So > > far the OpenSCAD web site did not do a good job at that. > > I think the libraries link on the site is good. There is actually this > link > in the "user manual" section: > > https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/Libraries > > This link then links to yet another list of libraries, which repeats some > and lists some new ones. It's kind of a mess. But also I do not think I > found this link when I was learning OpenSCAD, hence my question posted a > few > months back of "where are the libraries?" I think the "user manual" did > not appear very helpful so I had not examined it carefully and I was > reading > the language reference, which never mentions the existence of any > libraries. > Would it make sense to do one or both of: > > * Add a link in the language reference section 9 to the libraries page > * Add a small number of examples of using existing real libraries to do > something that is really hard without the library (and where the examples > are short and simple) > > I went back and was looking at the "user manual" some more. In other cases > I think of the "user manual" as being something like a tutorial, the better > place to start learning the language, whereas the "language reference" is > the complete, but terse description of all language functions. In the case > of OpenSCAD, the "user manual" seems that it cannot really be digested > until > one has read the "language reference". So what I think of as the normal > convention is not exactly followed here. This observation for me > strengthens the idea that it might be reasonable to add some more content > about libraries to the "language reference". > > > > Yes, so maybe one of the plus points for adding a library > > to the list would be the report by someone "I've used that > > in a project of mine and it was great" vs. just "I found > > that link in a 5 years old reddit thread. > > This seems like a reasonable criterion. I suppose if there was a simple > way > to let people vote that they like a library that might also be good, but I > suspect this is not feasible. (I don't mean a one-time round of voting on > the forum, but some automatic system where people could "like" a library. > I > am guessing this is probably not feasible...as there would have to be a way > to prevent multiple votes from the same person, so it seems complex.) > > > > > -- > Sent from: http://forum.openscad.org/ > > _______________________________________________ > OpenSCAD mailing list > Discuss@lists.openscad.org > http://lists.openscad.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.openscad.org >