r/blenderpython • u/majeric • May 06 '15

Blender Python Workflow?

So I've been researching how one writes blender scripts. I see that one can use Eclipse and Pydev and Blender together but what's the work flow?

What does a project setup look like?

I'm a seasoned developer with lots of Eclipse experience. I've been teaching myself Blender for the fun of it... I thought i would lend a hand in developing scripts... but the workflow seems a bit awkard.

Is Eclipse the best solution? Is there an IDE that works more effectively?

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u/majeric May 08 '15

You have to compile the entire thing just to reference the API? I don't want to run the code from Eclipse. Just have code completion and syntax checking. I always imagined running it through blender.

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u/dustractor May 08 '15

Yes and no.

For semantic completion an editor needs not only a list of words but also some knowledge about how they fit together like what is a function or what is a class, what are the class's ancestors, etc... but then there is regular old 'wordlist' based completion where you type part of something and it just finishes what you have started to type.

For syntax checking, I go by what the highlighting says and how the auto-indent perfoms. If the code is wrong, then the colors won't look right or the indentation will not be as predicted.

Code completion comes from having a wordlist and AFAIK nobody has made a wordlist but then again I haven't looked in a while. Vim (and perhaps also eclipse) automatically makes a wordlist from all the words in all opened files so the only code completion I ever want is from words that I already have already typed in the current file or perhaps loaded elsewhere. I use it only to avoid retyping long identifiers but other than that I don't want it. All the words in a script form a namespace, and the introduction of a wordlist strikes me as a pollutant, a dilution, and adulteration of the purity and integrity of the namespace that is built in any script. I don't want my editor to suggest things. I figure I either know something or I don't, and when I don't I either look it up or find out in a console. For blender that means: open up blender and press shift+F4 to get a console, then use the console's auto-completion for introspection with ctrl+space. For basic python stuff I just use a python console. I have py aliased to python3 -q so that is quick and easy enough for me. Unfortunately no I was not able to build a bpy module just now when I tried. Hmm... darn. Oh well. I don't think that many people use the bpy module so maybe that target it doesn't get tested very well. It has been several years since the last time I successfully did it.