Replicad as library using node without vite?

[swebal]

Love the workbench, but I would like to build something running on my host (using similar to Cpanel). I'm having a lot of trouble getting things up and running, but my main approach is this:

1. Initiate replicad as a library only (no react or vite) via server.js
2. Handle requests from UI and check for files with the same parameters
3. Return matching file content OR run Replicad script, create new file and return file content of new file
4. Show file contents using viewer of some kind (threejs probably)

I'm getting some strange errors when running the app-example online (no problem locally though), so I want to strip away everything not necessary to get things running before building the rest.

When I do this, with very similar code to app-example, I get various import errors such as:

Model generation error: TypeError: oc.gp_Vec_4 is not a constructor

or

TypeError [ERR_UNKNOWN_FILE_EXTENSION]: Unknown file extension ".wasm"

or

Startup error: TypeError: opencascadeFactory is not a function

The last one is some sort of import error, but I'm no web developer so I have no idea. Web development is so messy compared to app development (which I've done for 12 years..). I would really appreciate any help, thanks!

What would a barebones server.js look like?

[swebal]

Here are my files right now. For each error I solve another one pops up, as always when I try to go down this path... 😭

package.json
server.js
worker.js
cad.js

Worker and cad are almost straight out of app-example. If anyone can get this running with "node server.js" - Awesome!

[sgenoud]

Note that node does not have workers (it is a browser concept), and you probably need to import wasm modules in a slightly different way (I have not done work in node for a while).

[sgenoud]

The good news is that you don't need a server.js - the replicad studio is pure frontend. You can build it locally (or wget it) and then hosts the static files and serve it from wherever you want.

You could also do some pure backend stuff - I have created this CLI https://github.com/sgenoud/replicad-cli (it uses deno which was easier to work with as its model is closer to the browser).

[swebal]

Thanks, but your reply just makes me realize how little I know. I would very much like to use Replicad in some way to offer dynamic models online, but I simply don't grasp the terminology of web development. There seems to be a billion different ways to do anything and absolutely nothing is standard and works out-of-the-box. No offense, it's a great lib, but I've struggled for hours trying to get it to work and diving in to another approach now feels like voluntary drowning.. 😣

How difficult is either approach for an inexperienced person?

[sgenoud]

Welcome to the world of the web!

If you just want to share your model, you can do it via the workbench, and create a link to the share widget from there. You don't have to host anything (the code is in the URL). The model only runs in your browser (and in the browser of people who access it). If you just want to share the models that were built, you can even run the studio while offline.

If you don't know much about web dev, look at this part of the documentation.

If you want to serve a copy of the studio, it is quite easy. I have just created a zip of the latest version of the studio that you could serve with any server (this is all static assets). The replicad studio is a single page app, you might find some useful context here

Then if you want to go deeper you will need to learn some more about the js ecosystem (and there is a lot to learn).

[swebal]

Fantastic! Literally just dropped the zip in the root public_html and the workbench is working great. "netlify.toml" wasn't necessary in my case. Thank you!

[sgenoud]

You might need to redirect to index.html in some ways (otherwise loading mystudio/workbench will result in a 404)

[swebal]

I'll do that. Like with the netlify file?

Is it possible to post the zip non-minified? I would like to easier modify the colors a bit.. 😇

I'm reading the docs and super-impressed of all the work you've done. Aren't you worried though that opencascadejs hasn't been updated for such a long time? It would suck so much if that project dies, when so many others depend on it.