Wavefront OBJ Plugin v2.0

[sczerwinski]

I am starting to plan version 2.0 of the Wavefront OBJ plugin. I started development of this plugin when I was still learning about the platform, so it has some design flows. Current version the plugin has a few serious bottlenecks, which start making plugin maintenance hard.

1. Grammar is extremely specific and hence overly complex. Adding a new parameters requires low-level grammar changes and is quite tedious. Also might cause issues like Too many element types registered #588 (actual cause not confirmed). The grammar should be very simple (and unified between OBJ and MTL), as each line has pretty much the same format. Further processing should be handled in PresentationFactory.
2. 3D preview traverses whole PSI tree after each code change, and hence it is extremely slow. Parsing text directly might prove better for performance. Further experiments are required to make sure.
3. Having 3D preview open when a project is loading makes the IDE non-responsive for a significant period of time. I need to dig deeper into the lifecycle of Editor and other components to figure out a solution.

I might also decide to move away from JogAmp and use LWJGL instead. I will need to run some experiments before making a decision.

I only work on this project in my spare time (and this plugin is not my only open source project), so I can't give it as much development time as I would like. Thus, I can't promise any concrete timeframe for the new version. So please be patient.

Until then, I will continue updating supported IDE version. I will fix deprecations and obvious bugs. I will try to implement minor features, like adding support for new elements to the OBJ/MTL grammar (not necessarily to 3D preview though). But I will put development of larger features on hold.

If anyone has any ideas regarding the plugin, this might be the good time to put them forward. Since I plan a major rewrite, I can consider your requests in the plugin design.