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Standalone Showcase

The standalone showcase is a browser-hosted version of Feather's visual authoring tools. It lets you try the Shader Graph and Particle System Playground without starting the desktop app or connecting a local LÖVE project.

Open the standalone showcase

Use it to experiment with shader nodes, preview generated GLSL, tune particle emitters, scrub particle timelines, and see how the tools feel before wiring them into a running game. The showcase runs separately from the documentation site so its LÖVE preview can use the browser isolation headers required by love.js. The particle preview receives the same timeline play/seek payloads as the desktop tool, including clip timing and keyframe lanes.

What Works There

  • Shader Graph runs in the browser with the same graph editor, code output, template controls, node previews, and love.js preview target used by the desktop development flow.
  • Particle System Playground runs with the same emitter editor, timeline, keyframe easing, local preview, and export workflow.
  • Generated shader graphs and particle projects can be exported and imported between the showcase and the desktop app.

The showcase does not connect to a running game. Connected-game preview actions such as Show in Game, runtime overlay apply, or game-owned particle systems are only available from the Feather desktop app with a live session.

Local Development

Use the showcase dev server when working on the browser-hosted tools:

npm run showcase:dev

The dev server prepares a real love.js preview target when possible. It serves the generated love.js player and showcase.love bundle from an ignored development directory, then exposes the preview under /showcase-lovejs/.

If the love.js player is not already available, the dev helper looks for SHOWCASE_LOVEJS_DIR, vendor/love.js, and .showcase-vendor/love.js, then may attempt to fetch a compatible player. For offline work, set SHOWCASE_LOVEJS_SKIP_FETCH=1 and provide SHOWCASE_LOVEJS_DIR manually.

Preview Differences

The showcase preview is local to the browser. It should match the generated shader or particle behavior, but it does not exercise the desktop WebSocket, Tauri shell, or connected-game runtime. Use the desktop app when you need to verify runtime session behavior, plugin commands, game-owned objects, or connected-game overlays.