V2 : Multifile examples loaded from the example menu do not work

[SimonClark]

Expected Behavior

If there is a multi-file example in the examples menu, it should load

Actual Behavior

It does not load

Steps to Reproduce the Problem

Click on the STL Import example in the examples menu

Specifications

• Version: 2.0.0
• Platform: all
• Environment: browser

[z3dev]

I don't think this can be fixed. Here's why...

A project is a hiearchy of related files. From the examples...

module-design/
    index.js
    mountPlate.js
    package.json
    subFolder/
        sphereShape.js

The design uses 'relative' require statements to access the pieces.

const mountPlate = require('./mountPlate.js')
const sphereShape = require('./subFolder/sphereShape')

Unlike drag-n-drop, the actual file system structure is unknown (unavailable). So, somehow, a file system needs to be created. There might be several solutions:

1. load the file system from the server. this is only possible by configuring the HTTP server, and totally insecure.
2. load the 'required' files from the server. this would require parsing the code to determin the relative paths, loading, etc.

Number 1 really isn't feasible. configuring HTTP servers to expose file systems is almost 'forbidden', and this functionality is always a special extension.

Number 2 isn't possible. pre-parsing code is not realistic. even if possible, further functionality is required to assemble the file system, and load the contents from the HTTP server.

The solution is... 'drag-n-drop a project' or 'load a project'.

[z3dev]

V1... yeah. it supported 'include()'. this was pretty much a hack, which scanned the scripts and replaced the 'include()' statements with call to a function lookup. very ugly and very limited. also, there was a relative URL being composed / decomposed to obtain the 'relative' URL of the included file.

[z3dev]

Closing, as these 'project' based examples have been removed from the list of examples.