OpenSCAD-Modules

This is the wiki and issue tracker for the OpenSCAD Modules Registry.

OpenSCAD-Modules is a package manager for . It's powered by NPM, the package manager of the Node.js project and a registry dedicated for Openscad-Modules itself. The aim of an openscad package manager is to have a tooling which handles dependencies among multiple projects. With NPM we achieve the following goals:

• one of the best package managers for free :)
• easy to use, large community, stable and well established
• project description including dependencies in a well understandable json format
• supports modules from the registry and also from github repositories directly
• a lot of documentation, ranging from installing npm, to creating your first modules, ...

Quickstart

Install the Node Package Manager NPM

By the time of writing, Node.js (and its package manager npm) is available for the following systems:

• Arch Linux
• Debian and Ubuntu based Linux distributions
• Enterprise Linux and Fedora
• FreeBSD and OpenBSD
• Gentoo
• NetBSD
• nvm
• openSUSE and SLE
• macOS
• SmartOS and illumos
• Void Linux
• Solus
• Windows

Just follow the official guide and download link to download the node package manager and it's runtime Node.js.

Configure NPM to use the openscad-modules registry.

All you have to do is to inform NPM about the openscad-modules registry. This can be done in one of the following ways:

• Modify the NPM configuration in the way that it points to the openscad-modules registry. This is useful if you don't use npm for Node.js development.

  npm config set registry https://registry.openscad-modules.tk

• Use the registry on demand per package manager call.

  npm --registry=https://registry.openscad-modules.tk install <package>

Try it out

In this example, we will show howto use a module from the openscad registry. The project layout is as follows:

• A main project scad file Example-Project.scad which uses a . This module is a dependency described in the package.json file and will be installed by the package manager.
• A package.json file, this file describes the main project and the dependencies.

To work with the example you'll have to do the following:

• Clone this github repository to get the main project and package.json file.

  git clone https://github.com/RobertFach/Openscad-Modules

• Change into the Openscad-Modules folder.

  cd Openscad-Modules

• Run the package manager to get the required dependencies.

  npm --registry=https://registry.openscad-modules.tk install

• Finally, open with OPENSCADPATH=node_modules openscad Example-Project.scad in Openscad and compile the example. (Note that the additional variable is necessary so that all modules can be found by openscad)

Complex Example

The following sections are not yet complete!

In the following we will highlight several different use-cases and workflows.

Prepare a new project

Also it's not required, we recommend to put the code under version control, e.g., in a git repository. Now, we can describe the project Simple-Case by placing a package.json file inside the project root. This file describes the project and all it's dependencies. More details can be found in the Node.js and NPM.js documentation:

• 
• 

Create the package.json file with the following contents.

{
  "name": "Simple-Case",
  "description": "This project creates a simple case.",
  "version": "0.0.1"
}

Find a module

Our project goal is to create a simple case/housing. So lets find out if we can reuse some existing openscad module to simplify the development. ... to be written :)

npm --registry=https://registry.openscad-modules.tk search fractal

Add a module as a dependency

Build the complex example

Creating your own modules

Working with modules hosted on github