BR
Bob Roos
Wed, Mar 11, 2026 8:33 PM
Hello Discuss,
Is there any program that can read the SCAD file and give a rough idea of that it looks like?
I designed some things a few years back and don't remember the name, but would recognize the image of it.
There are programs that will do that STL files
Thanks
--
Best regards,
Bob mailto:roosbob@wybatap.com
Hello Discuss,
Is there any program that can read the SCAD file and give a rough idea of that it looks like?
I designed some things a few years back and don't remember the name, but would recognize the image of it.
There are programs that will do that STL files
Thanks
--
Best regards,
Bob mailto:roosbob@wybatap.com
JR
Jeff Ross
Wed, Mar 11, 2026 10:12 PM
Why not just use OpenSCAD?
Jeff
On 3/11/26 14:33, Bob Roos via Discuss wrote:
Hello Discuss,
Is there any program that can read the SCAD file and give a rough idea of that it looks like?
I designed some things a few years back and don't remember the name, but would recognize the image of it.
There are programs that will do that STL files
Thanks
Why not just use OpenSCAD?
Jeff
On 3/11/26 14:33, Bob Roos via Discuss wrote:
> Hello Discuss,
>
> Is there any program that can read the SCAD file and give a rough idea of that it looks like?
>
> I designed some things a few years back and don't remember the name, but would recognize the image of it.
>
> There are programs that will do that STL files
>
> Thanks
>
JB
Jordan Brown
Wed, Mar 11, 2026 11:30 PM
On 3/11/2026 1:33 PM, Bob Roos via Discuss wrote:
Is there any program that can read the SCAD file and give a rough idea of that it looks like?
Other than OpenSCAD itself, no.
Theoretically, there are two problems:
- There is no way to analytically figure out what a program does other
than to execute it. (You can execute it in your head, of course,
but that's still executing it.) Ref the Halting Problem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem.
- OpenSCAD has randomess available, so two runs of the same program
can produce radically different results.
There has been some discussion of supporting thumbnails, but the big
problem is that generating a thumbnail can take an arbitrary amount of
processor time and/or memory, and that's not the kind of thing you want
happening in the background or while you're waiting for your file
explorer to display a folder.
On 3/11/2026 1:33 PM, Bob Roos via Discuss wrote:
> Is there any program that can read the SCAD file and give a rough idea of that it looks like?
Other than OpenSCAD itself, no.
Theoretically, there are two problems:
* There is no way to analytically figure out what a program does other
than to execute it. (You can execute it in your head, of course,
but that's still executing it.) Ref the Halting Problem
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem>.
* OpenSCAD has randomess available, so two runs of the same program
can produce radically different results.
There has been some discussion of supporting thumbnails, but the big
problem is that generating a thumbnail can take an arbitrary amount of
processor time and/or memory, and that's not the kind of thing you want
happening in the background or while you're waiting for your file
explorer to display a folder.
GH
gene heskett
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 2:56 AM
On 3/11/26 19:31, Jordan Brown via Discuss wrote:
On 3/11/2026 1:33 PM, Bob Roos via Discuss wrote:
Is there any program that can read the SCAD file and give a rough idea of that it looks like?
Other than OpenSCAD itself, no.
Theoretically, there are two problems:
* There is no way to analytically figure out what a program does other
than to execute it. (You can execute it in your head, of course,
but that's still executing it.) Ref the Halting Problem
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem>.
* OpenSCAD has randomess available, so two runs of the same program
can produce radically different results.
There has been some discussion of supporting thumbnails, but the big
problem is that generating a thumbnail can take an arbitrary amount of
processor time and/or memory, and that's not the kind of thing you want
happening in the background or while you're waiting for your file
explorer to display a folder.
I've been known to suffer from that too but OpenSCAD's penchant
for showing only the last few files loaded, when I have gigabytes
of old code to search thru by changing the sort order as shown to
you, you have NDI if you have looked at file Z because the last file
loaded is moved to the top of the listing shown everytime you open
a file to look.
If we could turn that most recently viewed off in favor of an
alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date
would help, a lot.
My $.02, the resort on every re-load in that case is a PITA.
Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
Don't poison our oceans, interdict drugs at the src.
On 3/11/26 19:31, Jordan Brown via Discuss wrote:
> On 3/11/2026 1:33 PM, Bob Roos via Discuss wrote:
>> Is there any program that can read the SCAD file and give a rough idea of that it looks like?
> Other than OpenSCAD itself, no.
>
> Theoretically, there are two problems:
>
> * There is no way to analytically figure out what a program does other
> than to execute it. (You can execute it in your head, of course,
> but that's still executing it.) Ref the Halting Problem
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem>.
> * OpenSCAD has randomess available, so two runs of the same program
> can produce radically different results.
>
> There has been some discussion of supporting thumbnails, but the big
> problem is that generating a thumbnail can take an arbitrary amount of
> processor time and/or memory, and that's not the kind of thing you want
> happening in the background or while you're waiting for your file
> explorer to display a folder.
I've been known to suffer from that too but OpenSCAD's penchant
for showing only the last few files loaded, when I have gigabytes
of old code to search thru by changing the sort order as shown to
you, you have NDI if you have looked at file Z because the last file
loaded is moved to the top of the listing shown everytime you open
a file to look.
If we could turn that most recently viewed off in favor of an
alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date
would help, a lot.
My $.02, the resort on every re-load in that case is a PITA.
_____________________________________________
> OpenSCAD mailing list
> To unsubscribe send an email todiscuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
Don't poison our oceans, interdict drugs at the src.
JB
Jordan Brown
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 3:14 AM
On 3/11/2026 7:56 PM, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
If we could turn that most recently viewed off in favor of an
alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date
would help, a lot.
But an alphabetically sorted list of what?
Every .SCAD file that you've ever touched? Every .SCAD file on your system?
"most recent" can have a meaningful limit - most recent 10, most recent
100, and by definition they are files you've looked at before. That
list does not include everything. The other sort orders, not so much.
If you know what folder you're looking in, Windows will let you sort the
list at "open" time. Doesn't keep your place in the list, but you could
do that in your head, more or less. Also doesn't cross folders.
I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional) lazy-thumbnail
mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically whenever you did
F5 or F6.
On 3/11/2026 7:56 PM, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
> If we could turn that most recently viewed off in favor of an
> alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
> minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date
> would help, a lot.
But an alphabetically sorted list *of what*?
Every .SCAD file that you've ever touched? Every .SCAD file on your system?
"most recent" can have a meaningful limit - most recent 10, most recent
100, and by definition they are files you've looked at before. That
list does *not* include everything. The other sort orders, not so much.
If you know what folder you're looking in, Windows will let you sort the
list at "open" time. Doesn't keep your place in the list, but you could
do that in your head, more or less. Also doesn't cross folders.
I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional) lazy-thumbnail
mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically whenever you did
F5 or F6.
GH
gene heskett
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 5:00 AM
On 3/11/26 23:15, Jordan Brown via Discuss wrote:
On 3/11/2026 7:56 PM, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
If we could turn that most recently viewed off in favor of an
alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date
would help, a lot.
But an alphabetically sorted list of what?
Every .scad file it the current directory. And that list is about 70
entries,
which may have 2 or 3 more dir levels. grep -s becomes fairly helpful
if you can recall the module name.
Every .SCAD file that you've ever touched? Every .SCAD file on your system?
"most recent" can have a meaningful limit - most recent 10, most recent
100, and by definition they are files you've looked at before. That
list does not include everything. The other sort orders, not so much.
Sorting by creation date would be good also.
If you know what folder you're looking in, Windows will let you sort the
list at "open" time. Doesn't keep your place in the list, but you could
do that in your head, more or less. Also doesn't cross folders
I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional) lazy-thumbnail
mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically whenever you did
F5 or F6.
OpenSCAD mailing list
To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
Don't poison our oceans, interdict drugs at the src.
On 3/11/26 23:15, Jordan Brown via Discuss wrote:
> On 3/11/2026 7:56 PM, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
>> If we could turn that most recently viewed off in favor of an
>> alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
>> minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date
>> would help, a lot.
> But an alphabetically sorted list *of what*?
Every .scad file it the current directory. And that list is about 70
entries,
which may have 2 or 3 more dir levels. grep -s becomes fairly helpful
if you can recall the module name.
> Every .SCAD file that you've ever touched? Every .SCAD file on your system?
>
> "most recent" can have a meaningful limit - most recent 10, most recent
> 100, and by definition they are files you've looked at before. That
> list does *not* include everything. The other sort orders, not so much.
Sorting by creation date would be good also.
>
> If you know what folder you're looking in, Windows will let you sort the
> list at "open" time. Doesn't keep your place in the list, but you could
> do that in your head, more or less. Also doesn't cross folders
>
> I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional) lazy-thumbnail
> mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically whenever you did
> F5 or F6.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OpenSCAD mailing list
> To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
Don't poison our oceans, interdict drugs at the src.
JB
Jon Bondy
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 5:55 AM
Gene said (more or less) "OpenSCAD's penchant for showing only the last
few files loaded ... the last file loaded is moved to the top of the
listing shown everytime you open a file to look. If we could turn that
most recently viewed off in favor of an
alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date would
help, a lot."
I agree with this. I do NOT want to see files in the Recents list that
I just looked at and did not change. I only want to see files that I
changed.
Jon
On 3/11/2026 10:56 PM, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
On 3/11/26 19:31, Jordan Brown via Discuss wrote:
On 3/11/2026 1:33 PM, Bob Roos via Discuss wrote:
Is there any program that can read the SCAD file and give a rough idea of that it looks like?
Other than OpenSCAD itself, no.
Theoretically, there are two problems:
* There is no way to analytically figure out what a program does other
than to execute it. (You can execute it in your head, of course,
but that's still executing it.) Ref the Halting Problem
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem>.
* OpenSCAD has randomess available, so two runs of the same program
can produce radically different results.
There has been some discussion of supporting thumbnails, but the big
problem is that generating a thumbnail can take an arbitrary amount of
processor time and/or memory, and that's not the kind of thing you want
happening in the background or while you're waiting for your file
explorer to display a folder.
I've been known to suffer from that too but OpenSCAD's penchant
for showing only the last few files loaded, when I have gigabytes
of old code to search thru by changing the sort order as shown to
you, you have NDI if you have looked at file Z because the last file
loaded is moved to the top of the listing shown everytime you open
a file to look.
If we could turn that most recently viewed off in favor of an
alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date
would help, a lot.
My $.02, the resort on every re-load in that case is a PITA.
Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
Don't poison our oceans, interdict drugs at the src.
OpenSCAD mailing list
To unsubscribe send an email todiscuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com
Gene said (more or less) "OpenSCAD's penchant for showing only the last
few files loaded ... the last file loaded is moved to the top of the
listing shown everytime you open a file to look. If we could turn that
most recently viewed off in favor of an
alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date would
help, a lot."
I agree with this. I do NOT want to see files in the Recents list that
I just looked at and did not change. I only want to see files that I
changed.
Jon
On 3/11/2026 10:56 PM, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
> On 3/11/26 19:31, Jordan Brown via Discuss wrote:
>> On 3/11/2026 1:33 PM, Bob Roos via Discuss wrote:
>>> Is there any program that can read the SCAD file and give a rough idea of that it looks like?
>> Other than OpenSCAD itself, no.
>>
>> Theoretically, there are two problems:
>>
>> * There is no way to analytically figure out what a program does other
>> than to execute it. (You can execute it in your head, of course,
>> but that's still executing it.) Ref the Halting Problem
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem>.
>> * OpenSCAD has randomess available, so two runs of the same program
>> can produce radically different results.
>>
>> There has been some discussion of supporting thumbnails, but the big
>> problem is that generating a thumbnail can take an arbitrary amount of
>> processor time and/or memory, and that's not the kind of thing you want
>> happening in the background or while you're waiting for your file
>> explorer to display a folder.
> I've been known to suffer from that too but OpenSCAD's penchant
> for showing only the last few files loaded, when I have gigabytes
> of old code to search thru by changing the sort order as shown to
> you, you have NDI if you have looked at file Z because the last file
> loaded is moved to the top of the listing shown everytime you open
> a file to look.
>
> If we could turn that most recently viewed off in favor of an
> alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
> minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date
> would help, a lot.
>
> My $.02, the resort on every re-load in that case is a PITA.
> _____________________________________________
>> OpenSCAD mailing list
>> To unsubscribe send an email todiscuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
> Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
> --
> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
> soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> -Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
> If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
> - Louis D. Brandeis
> Don't poison our oceans, interdict drugs at the src.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OpenSCAD mailing list
> To unsubscribe send an email todiscuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com
JB
Jon Bondy
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 5:57 AM
Jordan said "I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional)
lazy-thumbnail mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically
whenever you did F5 or F6."
I like that idea a lot.
Jordan also said ""most recent" ... by definition they are files you've
looked at before."
By whose definition? Certainly not mine. I do NOT want to see files in
the list that just "looked at". I want to see files that I changed.
Jon
On 3/11/2026 11:14 PM, Jordan Brown via Discuss wrote:
On 3/11/2026 7:56 PM, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
If we could turn that most recently viewed off in favor of an
alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date
would help, a lot.
But an alphabetically sorted list of what?
Every .SCAD file that you've ever touched? Every .SCAD file on your
system?
"most recent" can have a meaningful limit - most recent 10, most
recent 100, and by definition they are files you've looked at before.
That list does not include everything. The other sort orders, not
so much.
If you know what folder you're looking in, Windows will let you sort
the list at "open" time. Doesn't keep your place in the list, but you
could do that in your head, more or less. Also doesn't cross folders.
I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional) lazy-thumbnail
mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically whenever you
did F5 or F6.
OpenSCAD mailing list
To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com
Jordan said "I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional)
lazy-thumbnail mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically
whenever you did F5 or F6."
I like that idea a lot.
Jordan also said ""most recent" ... by definition they are files you've
looked at before."
By whose definition? Certainly not mine. I do NOT want to see files in
the list that just "looked at". I want to see files that I changed.
Jon
On 3/11/2026 11:14 PM, Jordan Brown via Discuss wrote:
> On 3/11/2026 7:56 PM, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
>> If we could turn that most recently viewed off in favor of an
>> alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
>> minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date
>> would help, a lot.
>
> But an alphabetically sorted list *of what*?
>
> Every .SCAD file that you've ever touched? Every .SCAD file on your
> system?
>
> "most recent" can have a meaningful limit - most recent 10, most
> recent 100, and by definition they are files you've looked at before.
> That list does *not* include everything. The other sort orders, not
> so much.
>
> If you know what folder you're looking in, Windows will let you sort
> the list at "open" time. Doesn't keep your place in the list, but you
> could do that in your head, more or less. Also doesn't cross folders.
>
> I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional) lazy-thumbnail
> mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically whenever you
> did F5 or F6.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OpenSCAD mailing list
> To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com
BR
Bob Roos
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 6:15 AM
Hi Jordan,
Are you aware of a program called "search everything"? Works on windows and is very fast on NTFS volumes.
for example I can type ".scad trimm" (no quotes) and be presented with a list of all files matching that .
There is an option to include the path name in the search or not.
Check it out https://www.voidtools.com/faq/
you can sort by date modified to see when last change was made
Bob Roos
ps I did find the file I was looking for by finding the image of the STL using https://papas-best.com/stlthumbnails_en
Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 11:14:48 PM, you wrote:
On 3/11/2026 7:56 PM, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
If we could turn that most recently viewed off in favor of an
alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date
would help, a lot.
But an alphabetically sorted list of what?
Every .SCAD file that you've ever touched? Every .SCAD file on your system?
"most recent" can have a meaningful limit - most recent 10, most recent
100, and by definition they are files you've looked at before. That
list does not include everything. The other sort orders, not so much.
If you know what folder you're looking in, Windows will let you sort the
list at "open" time. Doesn't keep your place in the list, but you could
do that in your head, more or less. Also doesn't cross folders.
I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional) lazy-thumbnail
mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically whenever you did
F5 or F6.
Hi Jordan,
Are you aware of a program called "search everything"? Works on windows and is very fast on NTFS volumes.
for example I can type ".scad trimm" (no quotes) and be presented with a list of all files matching that .
There is an option to include the path name in the search or not.
Check it out https://www.voidtools.com/faq/
you can sort by date modified to see when last change was made
Bob Roos
ps I did find the file I was looking for by finding the image of the STL using https://papas-best.com/stlthumbnails_en
Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 11:14:48 PM, you wrote:
> On 3/11/2026 7:56 PM, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
>> If we could turn that most recently viewed off in favor of an
>> alphabetically sorted display it would turn a 6 hour job into a 30
>> minute job to find 8 year old code. Even a sort by creation date
>> would help, a lot.
> But an alphabetically sorted list *of what*?
> Every .SCAD file that you've ever touched? Every .SCAD file on your system?
> "most recent" can have a meaningful limit - most recent 10, most recent
> 100, and by definition they are files you've looked at before. That
> list does *not* include everything. The other sort orders, not so much.
> If you know what folder you're looking in, Windows will let you sort the
> list at "open" time. Doesn't keep your place in the list, but you could
> do that in your head, more or less. Also doesn't cross folders.
> I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional) lazy-thumbnail
> mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically whenever you did
> F5 or F6.
> _______________________________________________
> OpenSCAD mailing list
> To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
--
have Fun,
Bob mailto:roosbob@wybatap.com
L
larry
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 6:17 AM
On Thu, 2026-03-12 at 01:00 -0400, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
Every .scad file it the current directory. And that list is about 70
entries, which may have 2 or 3 more dir levels. grep -s becomes
fairly helpful if you can recall the module name.
You might like my solution. I call it 'seek', and it traverses an
entire directory tree, looking for any substring in a file name, prints
anything it finds with the substring coloured.
#!/bin/bash
#echo "$1"
tree -a -i -f | grep -i --color=always "$1" | less -R
Every .SCAD file that you've ever touched? Every .SCAD file on
your system?
"most recent" can have a meaningful limit - most recent 10, most
recent
100, and by definition they are files you've looked at before.
That
list does not include everything. The other sort orders, not so
much.
Sorting by creation date would be good also.
If you know what folder you're looking in, Windows will let you
sort the
list at "open" time. Doesn't keep your place in the list, but you
could
do that in your head, more or less. Also doesn't cross folders
I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional) lazy-
thumbnail
mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically whenever you
did
F5 or F6.
OpenSCAD mailing list
To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
On Thu, 2026-03-12 at 01:00 -0400, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
>
> Every .scad file it the current directory. And that list is about 70
> entries, which may have 2 or 3 more dir levels. grep -s becomes
> fairly helpful if you can recall the module name.
You might like my solution. I call it 'seek', and it traverses an
entire directory tree, looking for any substring in a file name, prints
anything it finds with the substring coloured.
#!/bin/bash
#echo "$1"
tree -a -i -f | grep -i --color=always "$1" | less -R
> > Every .SCAD file that you've ever touched? Every .SCAD file on
> > your system?
> >
> > "most recent" can have a meaningful limit - most recent 10, most
> > recent
> > 100, and by definition they are files you've looked at before.
> > That
> > list does *not* include everything. The other sort orders, not so
> > much.
> Sorting by creation date would be good also.
> >
> > If you know what folder you're looking in, Windows will let you
> > sort the
> > list at "open" time. Doesn't keep your place in the list, but you
> > could
> > do that in your head, more or less. Also doesn't cross folders
> >
> > I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional) lazy-
> > thumbnail
> > mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically whenever you
> > did
> > F5 or F6.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > OpenSCAD mailing list
> > To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
>
> Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
JB
Jordan Brown
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 6:55 AM
Jordan also said ""most recent" ... by definition they are files you've looked at before."
I wasn’t intending to draw a view vs edit distinction. (There, I would look to major applications for the usual practice, perhaps with an option.). My point was that the recent files list will not show you files that you have not looked at, and is limited even for files that you have looked at. Downloaded it? Won’t show. Wrote it last year? Probably won’t show.
> Jordan also said ""most recent" ... by definition they are files you've looked at before."
I wasn’t intending to draw a view vs edit distinction. (There, I would look to major applications for the usual practice, perhaps with an option.). My point was that the recent files list will not show you files that you have *not* looked at, and is limited even for files that you *have* looked at. Downloaded it? Won’t show. Wrote it last year? Probably won’t show.
JB
Jordan Brown
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 6:57 AM
Are you aware of a program called "search everything"? Works on windows and is very fast on NTFS volumes.
Not by name, but there are many such programs (including, I believe, one built into Windows Explorer).
However, the question was about a program that would show you what the resulting model looks like, and a text searcher won’t do that.
> Are you aware of a program called "search everything"? Works on windows and is very fast on NTFS volumes.
Not by name, but there are many such programs (including, I believe, one built into Windows Explorer).
However, the question was about a program that would show you what the resulting model looks like, and a text searcher won’t do that.
R
Rudolf
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 9:26 AM
Jordan said "I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional)
lazy-thumbnail mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically
whenever you did F5 or F6."
I like that idea a lot.
I also like this idea. It would be enough to (optionally) have the last
F5 screen saved automatically, whenever doing an explicit file save.
However, until we see such a thing in OpenSCAD it shouldn't be a too big
deal to write a crawler tool that finds all *.scad files in a path, runs
F5, and exports a preview png of each, say in some overnight job. It
also could maintain a database and automatically keep track of new scad
files ...
Rudolf
> Jordan said "I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional)
> lazy-thumbnail mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically
> whenever you did F5 or F6."
>
> I like that idea a lot.
>
I also like this idea. It would be enough to (optionally) have the last
F5 screen saved automatically, whenever doing an explicit file save.
However, until we see such a thing in OpenSCAD it shouldn't be a too big
deal to write a crawler tool that finds all *.scad files in a path, runs
F5, and exports a preview png of each, say in some overnight job. It
also could maintain a database and automatically keep track of new scad
files ...
Rudolf
GH
gene heskett
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 10:20 AM
On 3/12/26 02:21, larry via Discuss wrote:
On Thu, 2026-03-12 at 01:00 -0400, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
Every .scad file it the current directory. And that list is about 70
entries, which may have 2 or 3 more dir levels. grep -s becomes
fairly helpful if you can recall the module name.
You might like my solution. I call it 'seek', and it traverses an
entire directory tree, looking for any substring in a file name, prints
anything it finds with the substring coloured.
#!/bin/bash
#echo "$1"
tree -a -i -f | grep -i --color=always "$1" | less -R
Looks like I'll have to give that a try, thank you
Every .SCAD file that you've ever touched? Every .SCAD file on
your system?
"most recent" can have a meaningful limit - most recent 10, most
recent
100, and by definition they are files you've looked at before.
That
list does not include everything. The other sort orders, not so
much.
Sorting by creation date would be good also.
If you know what folder you're looking in, Windows will let you
sort the
list at "open" time. Doesn't keep your place in the list, but you
could
do that in your head, more or less. Also doesn't cross folders
I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional) lazy-
thumbnail
mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically whenever you
did
F5 or F6.
OpenSCAD mailing list
To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
Don't poison our oceans, interdict drugs at the src.
On 3/12/26 02:21, larry via Discuss wrote:
> On Thu, 2026-03-12 at 01:00 -0400, gene heskett via Discuss wrote:
>> Every .scad file it the current directory. And that list is about 70
>> entries, which may have 2 or 3 more dir levels. grep -s becomes
>> fairly helpful if you can recall the module name.
> You might like my solution. I call it 'seek', and it traverses an
> entire directory tree, looking for any substring in a file name, prints
> anything it finds with the substring coloured.
>
> #!/bin/bash
> #echo "$1"
> tree -a -i -f | grep -i --color=always "$1" | less -R
Looks like I'll have to give that a try, thank you
>
>>> Every .SCAD file that you've ever touched? Every .SCAD file on
>>> your system?
>>>
>>> "most recent" can have a meaningful limit - most recent 10, most
>>> recent
>>> 100, and by definition they are files you've looked at before.
>>> That
>>> list does *not* include everything. The other sort orders, not so
>>> much.
>> Sorting by creation date would be good also.
>>> If you know what folder you're looking in, Windows will let you
>>> sort the
>>> list at "open" time. Doesn't keep your place in the list, but you
>>> could
>>> do that in your head, more or less. Also doesn't cross folders
>>>
>>> I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional) lazy-
>>> thumbnail
>>> mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically whenever you
>>> did
>>> F5 or F6.
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> OpenSCAD mailing list
>>> To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
>> Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
> _______________________________________________
> OpenSCAD mailing list
> To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
Don't poison our oceans, interdict drugs at the src.
JB
Jon Bondy
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 1:26 PM
My thoughts were heading in this direction, too.
I keep almost all of my .SCAD files in one folder, so the following
would be easy for me.
I could write a trivial batch file in Windows that ran OpenSCAD from the
command line and created STL files in a parallel directory. Then I
could use the Windows Explorer to visually scan through the parallel
directory using something like this:
https://papas-best.com/stlthumbnails_en
I use "Everything" under Windows, which is an instantaneous file filter
based on text fragments. Type in "car .scad" and you will only see
.SCAD files that contain "car"
https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/
"Everything" changed my life. I never poke around in the directory tree
to find a file. I just type in a fragment of the name and use the file
directly.
Jon
On 3/12/2026 5:26 AM, Rudolf via Discuss wrote:
Jordan said "I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional)
lazy-thumbnail mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically
whenever you did F5 or F6."
I like that idea a lot.
I also like this idea. It would be enough to (optionally) have the
last F5 screen saved automatically, whenever doing an explicit file save.
However, until we see such a thing in OpenSCAD it shouldn't be a too
big deal to write a crawler tool that finds all *.scad files in a
path, runs F5, and exports a preview png of each, say in some
overnight job. It also could maintain a database and automatically
keep track of new scad files ...
Rudolf
OpenSCAD mailing list
To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com
My thoughts were heading in this direction, too.
I keep almost all of my .SCAD files in one folder, so the following
would be easy for me.
I could write a trivial batch file in Windows that ran OpenSCAD from the
command line and created STL files in a parallel directory. Then I
could use the Windows Explorer to visually scan through the parallel
directory using something like this:
https://papas-best.com/stlthumbnails_en
I use "Everything" under Windows, which is an instantaneous file filter
based on text fragments. Type in "car .scad" and you will only see
.SCAD files that contain "car"
https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/
"Everything" changed my life. I never poke around in the directory tree
to find a file. I just type in a fragment of the name and use the file
directly.
Jon
On 3/12/2026 5:26 AM, Rudolf via Discuss wrote:
>
>> Jordan said "I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional)
>> lazy-thumbnail mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically
>> whenever you did F5 or F6."
>>
>> I like that idea a lot.
>>
> I also like this idea. It would be enough to (optionally) have the
> last F5 screen saved automatically, whenever doing an explicit file save.
>
> However, until we see such a thing in OpenSCAD it shouldn't be a too
> big deal to write a crawler tool that finds all *.scad files in a
> path, runs F5, and exports a preview png of each, say in some
> overnight job. It also could maintain a database and automatically
> keep track of new scad files ...
>
> Rudolf
> _______________________________________________
> OpenSCAD mailing list
> To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
--
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
www.avg.com
LM
Leonard Martin Struttmann
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 2:17 PM
On windows, since I have Cygwin loaded, I use:
dir/s/b | grep "text"
On Mac/Linux I use find with subsequent grep as needed.
On Thu, Mar 12, 2026 at 6:27 AM Jon Bondy via Discuss <
discuss@lists.openscad.org> wrote:
My thoughts were heading in this direction, too.
I keep almost all of my .SCAD files in one folder, so the following
would be easy for me.
I could write a trivial batch file in Windows that ran OpenSCAD from the
command line and created STL files in a parallel directory. Then I
could use the Windows Explorer to visually scan through the parallel
directory using something like this:
https://papas-best.com/stlthumbnails_en
I use "Everything" under Windows, which is an instantaneous file filter
based on text fragments. Type in "car .scad" and you will only see
.SCAD files that contain "car"
https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/
"Everything" changed my life. I never poke around in the directory tree
to find a file. I just type in a fragment of the name and use the file
directly.
Jon
On 3/12/2026 5:26 AM, Rudolf via Discuss wrote:
Jordan said "I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional)
lazy-thumbnail mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically
whenever you did F5 or F6."
I like that idea a lot.
I also like this idea. It would be enough to (optionally) have the
last F5 screen saved automatically, whenever doing an explicit file save.
However, until we see such a thing in OpenSCAD it shouldn't be a too
big deal to write a crawler tool that finds all *.scad files in a
path, runs F5, and exports a preview png of each, say in some
overnight job. It also could maintain a database and automatically
keep track of new scad files ...
Rudolf
OpenSCAD mailing list
To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
On windows, since I have Cygwin loaded, I use:
dir/s/b | grep "text"
On Mac/Linux I use find with subsequent grep as needed.
On Thu, Mar 12, 2026 at 6:27 AM Jon Bondy via Discuss <
discuss@lists.openscad.org> wrote:
> My thoughts were heading in this direction, too.
>
> I keep almost all of my .SCAD files in one folder, so the following
> would be easy for me.
>
> I could write a trivial batch file in Windows that ran OpenSCAD from the
> command line and created STL files in a parallel directory. Then I
> could use the Windows Explorer to visually scan through the parallel
> directory using something like this:
>
> https://papas-best.com/stlthumbnails_en
>
> I use "Everything" under Windows, which is an instantaneous file filter
> based on text fragments. Type in "car .scad" and you will only see
> .SCAD files that contain "car"
>
> https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/
>
> "Everything" changed my life. I never poke around in the directory tree
> to find a file. I just type in a fragment of the name and use the file
> directly.
>
> Jon
>
>
> On 3/12/2026 5:26 AM, Rudolf via Discuss wrote:
> >
> >> Jordan said "I'm now wondering if we could/should have an (optional)
> >> lazy-thumbnail mechanism, that would record a thumbnail automatically
> >> whenever you did F5 or F6."
> >>
> >> I like that idea a lot.
> >>
> > I also like this idea. It would be enough to (optionally) have the
> > last F5 screen saved automatically, whenever doing an explicit file save.
> >
> > However, until we see such a thing in OpenSCAD it shouldn't be a too
> > big deal to write a crawler tool that finds all *.scad files in a
> > path, runs F5, and exports a preview png of each, say in some
> > overnight job. It also could maintain a database and automatically
> > keep track of new scad files ...
> >
> > Rudolf
> > _______________________________________________
> > OpenSCAD mailing list
> > To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
>
> --
> This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
> www.avg.com
> _______________________________________________
> OpenSCAD mailing list
> To unsubscribe send an email to discuss-leave@lists.openscad.org
KC
Kevin Cole
Thu, Mar 12, 2026 3:02 PM
On Linux I have a cron job that runs updatedb from the plocate
package. MUCH faster than find, as long as you keep the locate
database up to date with updatedb.
So,
$ locate substring | grep $HOME | most
quickly finds all files with "substring" in the name, and then filters
out any that are not in a subdirectory of my home directory --
eliminating /var/..., /usr/..., and whatnot.
And "most" is a very fancy pager much better IMHO than "less". (I have
an alias for grep that applies --color=always.) "locate -i" does a
case-insensitive search. There are some other nice options for locate
as well.
I'm using the plocate Debian package as opposed to locate or mlocate.
On Linux I have a cron job that runs updatedb from the plocate
package. MUCH faster than find, as long as you keep the locate
database up to date with updatedb.
So,
$ locate substring | grep $HOME | most
quickly finds all files with "substring" in the name, and then filters
out any that are not in a subdirectory of my home directory --
eliminating /var/..., /usr/..., and whatnot.
And "most" is a very fancy pager much better IMHO than "less". (I have
an alias for grep that applies --color=always.) "locate -i" does a
case-insensitive search. There are some other nice options for locate
as well.
I'm using the plocate Debian package as opposed to locate or mlocate.
