PythonSCAD v0.20.0 released

[nomike Postmann]

Hi everyone,

We’re happy to announce PythonSCAD v0.20.0. The headline change is session management: the app can remember how you left off and bring that workspace back on the next launch. This is similar to what applications like NotedPad++ and Visual Studio Code are doing. We’ve also improved reliability in a few places, rounded out Python API documentation, and made small quality-of-life updates. Full technical notes are in the changelog on the release PR.

Session management (new)

v0.20.0 introduces session persistence. When you quit and reopen PythonSCAD, you can get back your open tabs and editors, multi-window layout, customizer state, view and find state, and per-tab language—so routine work is easier to resume without rebuilding your environment from scratch.

The feature also includes autosave-style crash recovery, a clearer flow when closing tabs with unsaved changes, and a session option in Advanced preferences if you want to control the behavior. Customizer tweaks can apply without always pressing F5, and the stack includes dry-run safety so heavy preview work is harder to trigger by accident.

All of this ships as one coherent capability (see PR #415).

Note: To go back to the old behavior, you can go to Edit > Preferences > Advanced and disable the session management option. We tested this new feature quite extensively, but any feedback or bug reports on this new feature will be highly appreciated.

Improved unsaved-files dialog

When you want to close PythonSCAD a new dialog will list unsaved tabs and allow you to individually save them or decide to not save the remaining unsaved changes.

Save dialogs and editor language

Save and Save As now match the editor language you’re in: suggested names and filters line up with .py vs .scad, including sensible default folders so native file dialogs behave reliably. This addresses incorrect defaults some people hit in Python mode (#534).

Thanks @bereldhuin for reporting this.

Reliability and polish

• Context menu / right-click handling is more robust, with fewer crashes in edge cases.
• The measure tool again shows correct vertex indices when you need them.
• Windows builds use the PythonSCAD logo in the application and nightly resources (#543, #544).

Documentation

• The Python API cheatsheet and reference are brought to a complete state (PR #531).

Upstream changes

Of course we merged all changes from OpenSCAD into our codebase again to get the latest bugfixes and enhancement from our upstream project.

Downloads

Pre-built packages are available for Linux (AppImage, .deb, .rpm), macOS (DMG), and Windows (installer and zip):

https://pythonscad.org/downloads/

As always, we’d love to hear from you—feedback and bug reports are welcome!

[William Adams]

Thanks again for this!

It's been a while since this release --- is there a sense of when the next version will be released and what it would include?

Is there a roadmap or discussion of planned features?

William

[nomike Postmann]

Hello William!

We've been working tirelessly for weeks on the next release, which will in fact be version 1.0.0,

We've fixed a ton of issues, did lots of security hardening and also added plenty new features. We also did a lot of work on the basis and behind the scenes to allow us to add new things easier in the future (for example we could now add new functionality written purely in Python instead of having the Python C-API as the only option).

We've organized all tickets under the Milestone "Version 1.0" on GitHub and you can look at the list of pending issues.

The issue of PythonSCAD missing on PyPi will resolved automatically once the new release is out, so the only one remaining is the lack of proper signing for the Windows distributables,

Microsoft doesn't make things easy for small FOSS projects without a budget.
We're currently waiting for a reply from an organization which might be able to provide free code signing certificates to us, but in case this doesn't work out, there are other options we want to explore.

So I would like you to bear with us just a few more days so we can finally publish the biggest release so far.

It will be worth the wait!

Regards

nomike

[William Adams]

That's great to hear!

No hurry (though my Spacemouse has been gathering dust...)

"add new functionality written purely in Python" sounds promising! Is there anywhere that that sort of thing is written up?

William

[nomike Postmann]

Oops. I initially meant to add a link to the release PR for 1.0.0 and then forgot.
It gets updated automatically when new things are added to the release, but that's what we have so far.

Of course when the release is finally out, we will post a proper release announcement again with more details.

Regards

nomike

[Fred P]

Hi,

Thank you for your great work !

Do you need any help to validate this new release ? 

I can give a hand on testing (Ubuntu), french translation,...

Regards,

Fred

[John David]

This all sounds great.  Thank you for all the great work!

  EBo --

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