You will need a reliable text editor to edit the contents of “openings_and_additions.txt” which contain all the information necessary to cut the openings in your keyguard and to add plastic to the outer edge of your keyguard. The program then uses this information to layout your keyguard design for 3D printing. Notepad++ is an easy to use text editor – but more important, it doesn’t put any special hidden characters in the .txt files that will confuse keyguard.scad.
Note that you can use the built-in program Notepad on Windows, instead. If you have an Apple Mac you can use the built-in text editor called TextEdit. Be sure that the format is set to “Make Plain Text” so that no special/hidden characters are inserted into the files.
Start by downloading a copy of Notepad++ to your computer and install it. You can download the latest version of Notepad++ here for free.
Launch Notepad++ and open “openings_and_additions.txt”. You’ll see a tab in the program that looks something like this:
Along with some instructions at the start of the file (each line beginning with the characters “//”) there are four lines at the bottom that you’ll be copying and editing. If you have keyguard.scad running in OpenSCAD at the same time, then each time you save the file from within Notepad++ you’ll see your changes automatically update the keyguard pictured in OpenSCAD. This is a great way to see if the changes you’ve made to the data are having the effect you intended.
You can learn more about how to modify the .txt files here.