Feedback contact for prusaprinters.org?
In migrating my designs from Thingiverse to Prusaprinters, I have encountered some annoying things, not the least of which is the absence of any way to contact the site for feedback, bug reports, or suggestions. At least Thingiverse has a support contact, and they did respond a year ago last time I contacted them, although now they're unresponsive.
Here are some annoynances I have found in the Prusaprinters alternative to Thingiverse:
- No recognition or support of OpenSCAD files. Come on now! OpenSCAD designs are pretty standard for 3D models. This is my #1 gripe.
- No consistency in design descriptions. Thingiverse has separate sections for description, print settings, post-printing, etc. Prusaprinters has one big description section. It would be nice to offer a consistent organized way to present critical information about designs. In particular, having no separate section for print settings looks like an oversight; this seems too important to omit. Yes, I can add that in the decriptions of my own designs, but the point is consistency across the site.
- No support for animated gifs in thumnail previews. Sometimes this is more practical to illustrate something than a YouTube video.
- No functionality for 3D viewing any individual STL in a design, just one selected STL.
- I don't see any integration of add-on tools (Thingiverse has the Customizer for OpenSCAD designs, as well as other add-ons that you can select to attach to your designs).
How does one provide feedback? If Prusaprinters wants to be the next Thingiverse, some basic features need to be implemented.
RE: Feedback contact for prusaprinters.org?
Okay, I take the bait.
No recognition or support of OpenSCAD files. Come on now! OpenSCAD designs are pretty standard for 3D models. This is my #1 gripe.
Not sure what you're talking about. The description under Add Files clearly states:
Supported files: stl, 3mf, gcode, sl1, sl1s, stp, step, obj, amf, scad, f3d, f3z, dwg, dxf, 3ds, blend, factory, skp, rsdoc, fcstd, py, ipt, sldprt, ply, slvs, iges, pdf, txt, ino, ini, ai, cdr, csv, svg, jpg, jpeg, png, gif, webp
I've never had problems uploading .scad files, e.g., https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/63026.
No consistency in design descriptions.
True, but how often do creators on TV use those blocks. I'd argue it's easier for me as a creator to just use a heading format to indicate print instructions etc. Plus, many of the dropdown menus on TV have not been updated for new printer models, filament types, etc. I actually don't blame them for it, way too much work to stay ahead of the game.
No support for animated gifs in thumnail previews
Can't talk to this, have never used an animated gif in my life but I take your point.
No functionality for 3D viewing any individual STL in a design, just one selected STL.
Well, you can. Click on the second image in the image gallery, then select Open 3D Viewer. From here you can look at all the STLs *and* .gcode files.
I don't see any integration of add-on tools (Thingiverse has the Customizer for OpenSCAD designs, as well as other add-ons that you can select to attach to your designs).
True. On the other hand, the Customizer on TV has been MIA for a long time. I have no usage data of course for any other add-ons but I'd bet big money that most of them have gone unnoticed by the user community. But again, point take, it's just not something I personally care for.
In any case, I'm glad you found your way over! I left the TV cesspool quite a while ago, never looked back. All in all, I like the prusaprinter experience a lot better, and most importantly, it is constantly being worked on, unless TV which has been left to rot.
Formerly known on this forum as @fuchsr -- until all hell broke loose with the forum software...
RE: Feedback contact for prusaprinters.org?
My 2 cents as well.
No recognition or support of OpenSCAD files. Come on now! OpenSCAD designs are pretty standard for 3D models. This is my #1 gripe.
I personally don't use it, but according to Fuchsr above, it's supported.
No consistency in design descriptions.
I can agree somewhat. 3MF files contain all the print settings so often times describing everything isn't necessary. Unfortunately not every model is in this format so settings would be helpful especially if they're out of the ordinary. Many models are uploaded with little information attached. Maybe now that the site is established as a go-to repository they can be a little more stringent about how much information is provided with new models. Especially when uploading stl or scad files with no settings data embedded.
No support for animated gifs in thumnail previews
I agree, I'd like that.
No functionality for 3D viewing any individual STL in a design, just one selected STL.
It's not easy to navigate, but I've been able to do it.
I don't see any integration of add-on tools (Thingiverse has the Customizer for OpenSCAD designs, as well as other add-ons that you can select to attach to your designs).
Again, I don't use scad and my modeling software (Creo) doesn't support it (I don't think). I'm open to add-ons though if they're useful for some people. Apparently PrusaPrinters is getting a new name and a new web layout very soon. That seems like the kind of implementation that would take place during a remodel, so there's hope.
Glad you made the jump. Welcome to the community.
RE:
I stand corrected!
Although... my original question about the lack of a way to provide feedback still stands.
OpenSCAD files: Maybe I was looking at the wrong list ("other files"), or maybe I just didn't see it the first time. And I was disturbed by a ghostly dragon appearing in the preview thumbnails unless I put the .scad files at the end of the list.
I haven't actually uploaded any designs to Prusaprinters yet, they're all imports from Thingiverse. I noticed annoyances while I was cleaning up my imported designs.
3D viewing: I see now how to do it, thanks. That's more clunky than the Thingiverse method, where you just click on the 3D view for any individual STL.
Another issue I found is that the Thingiverse import feature doesn't preserve timestamps. If you try to import all your designs at once, they can end up in a scrambled chronological order, which is confusing when some of my designs build on previous designs. So I've been importing them one at a time. Not quite done yet.
I was reasonably satisfied with Thingiverse until a couple of days ago. The only reason I'm moving stuff to Prusaprinters is because I have a design on Thingiverse that has gotten a lot of likes and has been added to many collections, but for some reason it's now visible only to me, and 404 for everyone else! Ironically, makes of my design (example) still link to the original Thing... which is 404. Thingiverse support has been unresponsive, and when I experimentally removed files from that design to see if it would become visible again, it briefly became 404 for me.
That's enough. I decided to move my stuff to Prusaprinters after seeing general consensus favoring it on Reddit.
RE: Feedback contact for prusaprinters.org?
It also seems that TV has changed their download procedure so that you have to do a separate download for each part of a design. I can no longer find any 'download all'.
RE: Feedback contact for prusaprinters.org?
3D viewing: I see now how to do it, thanks. That's more clunky than the Thingiverse method, where you just click on the 3D view for any individual STL.
You can also go to the Files tab and then just click on the image to the left of the filename to open the 3D viewer. It works for at least .stl, .3mf, and .gcode files.
RE: Feedback contact for prusaprinters.org?
It also seems that TV has changed their download procedure so that you have to do a separate download for each part of a design. I can no longer find any 'download all'.
Yeah, they got rid of that after they broke it. I didn't run into the issue, but a lot of people were getting 404 errors trying to use that button, so it's gone. That's one way of addressing the bug I guess.
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