@gavvy said: em~~ Gaieus Maybe you don't know the pass of them. I love Sketchup Very Much,and they claim they are "China Sketchup Official website".why? And much other things of them OK, that explains much! Sorry for my ranting!

And again. This time bar should have been @foo.bar.

@thomthom said: And it really is counter-intuitive the way Ruby 1.8 works. Agree! .. but at least they revising Ruby to correct things the way they should be.

@davidboulder said: This isn't data that will just pop up while something is running. It would be on the screen while the user is working on the model. This rules out view.draw_text as this can be done only inside a custom Tool, and the user would be using other tools (standard and custom.) @davidboulder said: ... but I thought a screen overlay head's up display for some data would be slick. Might be... but some users find overlays annoying, and would want a way to turn them off. @davidboulder said: I guess my third option is just to keep the data as part of a dialog box; Best idea is a Webdialog. The user could have it floating anywhere, resize it to their liking, and close it when they wish. FUTURE: Perhaps someday the API might include a dockable DataBar class (similar to the StatusBar.)

As if documenting the entire API wasn't crazy enough, here's crazy idea #2 - create a mock-up Ruby library of the entire SketchUp API (called Mock-Up, naturally.) Document the source code classes, methods, constants, etc as if it were actual code (because it is.) Generate docs from source code. With the potential added benefit of being able to test SketchUp plug-ins outside of Sketchup.

Unfortunately the built-in 'delete guides' menu item removes all guides [lines and points] in the model - including any in groups or component-instances [including locked ones] and even guides stored in 'off' layers - however, guides within a component definition that has no instances in the model are safe... Two years ago I wrote a set of context-menu tools to deleted guide-lines / -points 'selectively' - here's an update ConsDeleteContext.rb I would also be possible to write a new tool to 'preserve selected guides' - it would duplicate them in a new definition that had no instances [with a bit of vertical 'edge' ([0,0,0],[0,0,1]) at the origin***], later you could choose to 'restored preserved guides' and it would place an instance of that component [at the origin, erasing the temporary 'edge' there ? *** I haven't quite worked through how the guide-component 'insertion' point is kept for later reinsertion - but it will be possible], then explode the instance and then delete that component-definition's entities, thereby purging it from the component-browser's list. Of course purging the model's unused components in between times would delete the preserved-guide component and the saved guides would be lost - just like copying something new to the clipboard loses the current data. The 'preserve selected guides' would be like using the clipboard and it'd overwrite any already preserved, but it could be set to warn if there is an existing preserved set [i.e not yet restored] that'd be lost in the process, and it'd ask you either to overwrite the set or to add these new guides to the existing set ? Unfortunately I'm stowed under will other things, and I'm unlikely to be able to look at this before sometime in June! - but if anyone wants to take up the ideas feel free...

hmm... interesting... have you tested any of the unusual candidates?

I prefer unompressed output as the codec when compiling to a movie file will compress it. If you JPEG compress the stills you'll end up double up with compression artefacts.

@thomthom said: It would help if you posted the syntax error you get. It includes indication to where in the script you have errors. And when you post code snippets, please wrap it [code] tags in order to preserve formatting and ease of reading. Hey sorry i edited my post before i saw yours because i found a snippet that i didnt include and i thought it best just to ask someone who knows what theyre doing

TM's? Sometimes its painful to help when I have to ask more questions about your jargon than about your sript issues

Ok - my bad. I was being silly and didn't consider I was dealing with squares when I typed 100.mm. Sketchup.format_area(100.mm**2) 10000 Millimeters ²

@kat said: Yes exactly, that was my question, i didn't understand why i needed to add two different sizes of icons to the Command. I think i did everything as explaned in the API docs, but i still won't display the icon. Are there any settings that i should check? Or something like .visible = true? From your code it appear you only added small icon. Hav eyou set your toolbar view to Small Icons? The default are Large.

@tig said: Glad we helped Are your martinis as dry as your humor?

Yea, always avoid comparing strings. Such a shame that they've not added a proper comparison method for all objects.

Hopefully in some future version we'll have a Geom::Axes class that let's us instantiate as many UCS' as we need and GC them when they're no longer needed. (There would be a world WCS preset by SU of course.)

@dan rathbun said: @martinrinehart said: I am working on a multi-move animation controller. By multi-move I mean one which allows multiple things to move at different times, times probably overlapping so multiple things can move at once. Have you investigated the standard Ruby library class Mutex ? http://phrogz.net/ProgrammingRuby/tut_threads.html ... and scroll down about 3/4 of the page. As always, Dan, I learn from your posts. I tried to work my way through this chapter, but had very little luck replicating the book's results. Gave up before Mutex.

This bit of code is unusual: vector = ... vector2 = vector.normalize! By convention, Ruby methods that end with a "!" work directly on the calling object's data. So vector.normalize! normalizes vector. You now have the normalized data in vector and a second reference to it in vector2. Not sure that was what you intended. I added a comment to the Vector3d class doc to clarify this. (If you learned from the doc you were misled.)

no no I'm thinking more along the lines of the Ruby's being arranged into Folders that are renamed to Plugins as the bank is selected. while not selected, they'd be 'Bank 1' etc.

I'm working with very large textures and I think su offten crashes because of that reason. It just can't work with very large files. You can operate inside sketchup but forget the export. Well that's just my guess. At home I have x64 bit os and there are no such problems - not so offten.

post moved @wsellers89 said: Is there a good reference or tutorials for learning more about Ruby on SketchUp? Free downloadable PDF version of "Automatic SketchUp" at Google Docs (Look for the download link in the upper-left of toolbar.) EDIT: As of JULY 2010 Google reports "Sorry, the page (or document) you have requested is not available." Try the author's website: Automatic Sketchup You ALSO need to learn some standard Ruby, the old 'Pick-Axe' book "The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide: Programming Ruby" http://phrogz.net/ProgrammingRuby/frameset.html (There is a tar download link at the bottom of the left pane.) @wsellers89 said: I am experienced in Fortran and to a less extent C, but I can follow most of the the code. The weirdest thing about Ruby (and it's kept secret from newbies, I guess to surprise them in the advanced course?,) is that Ruby has no actual variables like BASIC, Pascal, or FORTRAN. Read this post for more info: [url=http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=26437#p230201:2y8qpfiu]By value or by reference?[/url:2y8qpfiu] I personally would ALWAYS tell experienced programmers about this FIRST thing, as it can and has led to much wasted time and frustration. @wsellers89 said: I am not sure what ".to_f" does in the loop to parse out the x,y points and would like to know more. Converts the object (on the left of the dot,) to a Float class. This is one of the standard Ruby instance methods. [url=http://phrogz.net/ProgrammingRuby/builtins.html#builtinclassesandmethods:2y8qpfiu]Built-In Class and Methods[/url:2y8qpfiu] This old 'Pick-Axe' version was written for Ruby 1.6.x, but still helps alot. Sketchup is using the 1.8.x branch, but the book is still say 95% valid. Ver 1.8.x renamed a few Exceptions, added some more methods, etc. (There are updated hardcopy books available for sale for the 1.8.x and 1.9.x branch. Check booksellers or Ebay.) Other Topics here at SketchUcation on Ruby Programming: [url=http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=10142:2y8qpfiu]SketchUp-Ruby Resources[/url:2y8qpfiu] [url=http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=20427:2y8qpfiu]Developer Forum Sticky Links[/url:2y8qpfiu] [url=http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=27606:2y8qpfiu]Ruby Docs[/url:2y8qpfiu] this topic (pssst! You can bookmark topics and access your bookmarks through your User Control Panel. The link is a the top left of each forum just below the list of Moderators. The bookmark button is hidden all the way at the bottom of each topic webpage in the footerbar.)