Hey, that works great Jim, thanks! [me thinking this through out loud to make sure I have the logic straight] So the VCB is being set to blank because another tool is being called (oribt). Defining a resume method tells my tool what to do when it is resumed? Excellent. Thanks Jim, Chris

My TubeAlongPath.rb can fail if the path's line segments are too short. Also its cousin PipeAlongPath.rb might be more forgiving and better trapped. Also use sensibly few sides for the tube/pipe - having lots of sides adds little to its appearance but multiplies up the number of faces... Short path segments are trapped [at least an attempt to trap] since SketchUp's FollowMe tool fails on paths with short lengths where the faces it would make on the innermost part of the turns very small. Alternatively you can scale up the path x10 [and then the pipe's diameter too]... that way the face bits never get too small and so there's no bugsplats=... Scale everything down x0.1 on completion...

Tig, So far, from my testing, hidden objects are not being exported. Try it yourself. If you create KMZ file, change it to a ZIP extension and open it. Examine the diretory and file sturcture. If you want to examine the embedded KML file (or KMZ file directly), try Northgate's free KML editor.

works perfect. Its a great help. Thanks TIG and Chris Pritam

For the record, (and to return to the original posting in the thread, I type the sample for UI,openpanel from the documentation into the new SU 7 Ruby console chosen_image = UI.openpanel "Open Image File", "c;\\", "Shapes.jpg" It works ok (but begs the question of why you would supply and existing path and file to UI.openpanel). When I change it to use wildcards, chosen_image = UI.openpanel "Open Image File", "c;\\", "*.jpg" It shows _.jpg as the file name (underscore instead of *) and does not filter for .JPG files.

I would say if it could have be done, it would have been done already. Your options are to edit each script to change the menu locations, or have a look at organizer, or write your own version of organizer, or write some other type of plugin organizer possibly using a WebDialog.

That is exactly right. Thats a great script that probably makes prodigious use of that method. Now if only I could figure out the rest of the vector3d methods Chris

Hi Jim, glad you got it working, Chris

Thank you all, i guess between myself and my IT we goofed on the copy location of some of the scripts. And I did have to delete the podium script. We are back up and running now. Thanks again. christopher

Hi Jim, Very nice, this is indeed exactly what i want...

ok, plugin made and located here: http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=16915 Chris

It woudnt hurt to have it available as a SU plugin. From a brief read of the description it would probably be of more use to plugin developers, though. If you fancy releasing it you can just post it here. Just start a thread with the title: [plugin]Linalg library.

This is an entire working script, from start to finish. Save it as a .rb file and its ready to go. It installs itself as "Plugins>Mouse Tools". There are no comments in the code whatsoever. I took them all out because the ones that were there were not terribly helpful, mostly just made it hard to read the code straight through. I believe that this code is more complex than absolutely necessary because it adds a few checks to make sure it does not call the draw method unnecessarily. Hopefully this helps. I'm still confused what portions of this code are doing.... require 'sketchup.rb' class Clf_mousetools def activate @ip = Sketchup;;InputPoint.new @iptemp = Sketchup;;InputPoint.new @displayed = false end def onMouseMove(flags, x, y, view) pos = @ip.position Sketchup;;set_status_text("#{pos.x}, #{pos.y}, #{pos.z}") @iptemp.pick view, x, y if( @iptemp.valid? ) changed = @iptemp != @ip @ip.copy! @iptemp pos = @ip.position; if( changed and (@ip.display? or @displayed) ) view.invalidate end end end def draw(view) if( @ip.valid? && @ip.display? ) @ip.draw view @displayed = true else @displayed = false end end end if !file_loaded?(__FILE__) then UI.menu("Plugins").add_item("Mouse Tools") { Sketchup.active_model.select_tool Clf_mousetools.new } end file_loaded(__FILE__) Chris

@chris fullmer said: @j_forrester said: Wow! Just had a look at this script. The most useful script for workflow I have seen. Great work! Thats because Thomas is amazing! Very kind words Chris. Thanks.

Dear Amo, You can use Outliner to view long group/component names by stretching the box. If you have Outliner and Entity Info both open at the same time then you can easily select and rename groups and components. Regards, Bob

Well, you can certainly do that, Miguel (and yes, I know things often sound to be much more complex when written down like this than doing them actually) but I'm pretty sure there is an easy way with ruby. Just think about TubeAlongPath for instance; it has already done it. In fact, if there's no separate script, you could even use this plugin to make a simple tube then erase everything BUT the face at the end and use that for a perpendicular/orthogonal alignment.

That ides keeps popping up in my mind too. But then what about all the other authors who do not host through smustard? There are a lot of them. I think I like the idea of hosting them here, with all the plugins included in the zip file (with all appropriate permissions, etc) with links to the "official" home to each plugin included in the thread. So there could be a link to each smustard script included, to each of Didier's scripts, to TBD's, to Jim's blog, to the thread on this forum where the script is maintained, etc, and a link to Cadfather's page if he'd like (and I think he deserves the publicity for taking the time to do it, and do it well). That way perhaps its easier to track each script and make sure the toolbar is using current versions of each script too. And it can be the SCF toolbar, as a collaboration with the SCF (as its hosted here), Cadfather (since he maintains it and hosts a version on his website) and all authors who frequent here. Is that overkill? And I think that satisfies everything in my mind - a single place to download and install a single package, with quick links to all separate scripts. Chris

Hello wadhahmm, You may have more understanding at one of the non-English languages forums. Although I have never tried FreeRIDE, it seems like too much for typical SketchUp/Ruby requirements.

http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=13672

Hi Marcio What I've send, was a down and dirty test. I 'll study carefully your last advices. I'll probably make some tut in french soon... Regards Pierre MALAISE