symlinks are causing issues on Windows

[nhz2]

Hello,
Thank you for maintaining this viewer. I am using it to view and debug simulations.

There are two symlinks in the test directory, test/main.js => ../dist/main.js and test/main.min.js => ../dist/main.min.js
These are preventing me from running the examples in the test directory on Windows, because Windows by default cannot create symlinks. This is also a issue for people trying to install the julia package on Windows Ref: rdeits/MeshCat.jl#249

Can the symlinks be deleted and the <script src="main.min.js"></script> be replaced with <script src="../dist/main.min.js"></script>
in the tests? I would be happy to make a PR.

[jwnimmer-tri]

That seems OK to me. WDYT @SeanCurtis-TRI?

[nhz2]

Can there be a new release for this version?

[SeanCurtis-TRI]

Hmmm.... I'm not sure what it means to have a release for meshcat. The only tag we have is from August, 2021.

@nhz2 Did you have something particular in mind?

[jwnimmer-tri]

We haven't been tagging releases. I believe most people just use the git sha. That said, we should probably do another release tag at some point, since the current tag is so old.

In any case, fixes to tests only don't seem to merit a new release on their, do they? Fixes to tests only affect developers and contributors, not end-users. Releases don't typically encompass tests, especially manual hero tests, do they?

[nhz2]

The Julia package requires a URL to download a tarball with known sha256 hash, and it seems like releases are a way to make those. https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/working-with-files/using-files/downloading-source-code-archives#stability-of-source-code-archives

But since this is specific to Julia, the tarball of this repo could go on a release of MeshCat.jl as well.

[jwnimmer-tri]

Ah, for checksum stability you need not only a release, but a source attachment to the release. See for example the most recent numpy release:

https://github.com/numpy/numpy/releases/tag/v1.26.3

The Source code (tar.gz) does not have a stable checksum. Only an attachment like numpy-1.26.3.tar.gz is invariant.

[jwnimmer-tri]

Tracking at => #164 now.