Got it. Thank-you Sdmitch. As always your guidance with the syntax is impeccable. Even after a year I'm still feel like a bull in a china shop I'm still a bit of a ways away from a boolean subtraction but at least I have something to work with now.

I can help with Mandarin (Chinese), my fiancé is Taiwanese

Here is the bottom line in the .ZIP to .RBZ saga My current version of Winrar 5.31 (64-bit) ....failed to faithfully do a proper .zip conversion. TIG informed me how one script I sent him was able to be installed while the other was not. How is this possible? That lead me to investigate what had happens to WinRar, which I have used for .rar .zip and password protect files since the early 2000's I attached one of my very old XP HDD's via a none sata to usb connection to my PC. And there it was, an old copy of Winrar 3.71 I used the old Winrar 3.71 to make a new zip file renamed .zip to .rbz installed the .rbz voila! ... it installs via the dreaded Installation Manager! I admit I'm a so learner, this is not the first time I have regretted getting on that bloody upgrade treadmill. I can hardly wait for SU 2018

First we set up some references. model = Sketchup.active_model ss = model.selection Then depending on how you want to 'start' off your plugin... edges = model.active_entities.grep(Sketchup::Edge) An array of all edges in the active context*** OR edges = ss.grep(Sketchup::Edge) An array of all edges in the current selection.*** Now resolve the selection: ss.clear ss.add(edges) ***The 'rep' finds all edges, including those bordering faces. So if you want to select just those edges without faces then you can extend the 'grep' code thus ... .grep(Sketchup::Edge).find_all{|e| e.faces.length == 0 } The array 'edges' then just lists those edges without faces...

I've found the problem. It was in line "opening = subelement.entities.add_group" I created a group inside the group I wanted to subtract.

@bjornburgh said: Pasting the Script in the Ruby console doesn't work. Is there another way? def remove_instances_duplicates defs=Sketchup.active_model.definitions to_delete=[] defs.each do |compo_def| next if compo_def.internal? instances=compo_def.instances instances2=instances instances2.each do |i2| keeping_instance=instances.shift instances.each do |instance| if instance != keeping_instance and instance.transformation.to_a == keeping_instance.transformation.to_a and instance.definition.insertion_point.transform(instance.transformation)==keeping_instance.definition.insertion_point.transform(keeping_instance.transformation) to_delete.push(instance) puts "Erasing duplicate instance of " + instance.definition.name end end end end to_delete.each { |inst| inst.erase! } end There was an extra "end" in the code. Removing that should fix the problem. After pasting into the Ruby Console, press Enter then type in "remove_instances_duplicates" to execute.

If you are really serious about running another copy or another version of SU, without it interfering with the registry then you should consider virtualization a version of your SU software. https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/downloads Example: I'm currently using SU 2015 as my main workhorse for daily work. Having found out that SU 2016 wont run many of my Ruby scripts. I created a virtual copy of SU 2016, also known as a Portable version, using vmware. Warning: this process should not be attempted without a good understanding of Windows and what virtualization is. Here is a short description of how I make a portable copy. I always have a fresh bootable install of Windoz only, on a new UBS3 HDD I install vmware and SketchUp on 1 3, With vmware running I make a new Bootable copy of SketchUp Now I can run a portable version of SketchUp from my USB3 HDD or move that Portable to any other HDD If you are competent in using vmware you can make versions that allow you to add addons scripts to your portable version, this is very important. good luck!

Thanks for picking up the question ThomThom I'm developing a measuring tool and part of the functionality lies on the capability of the tool to make a quick measurement no matter what context you are into. Currently I'm getting the information via pickpoint but I'm having hard time trying to get rid of the interferencing and also confuses me a lot when the cursor is over a face but one or more edges are just behind that face because my draw method to highlight either the face or the edge goes crazy when underneath the cursor are to much geometry happening. I wanted to implement a method using pickhelper but the not picking outside active context thing stopped me. The tool angleinspector from fredo marvelously does exactly what I want to achieve and I'm trying to mimic that functionality but without success. http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=180%26amp;t=67058 Here you can see a gif describing my problem. Saludos

@slb_jwm said: In any email client I've used, ... This is an online messaging board, not an email client. (It just happens to have an optional email echo feature.)

@davesexcel said: Thanks, I think I understand the concept, from excel vba we are opening sketchup and passing on a variable that a plugin will recognize to run the plugin? I think Jim explained it better and more detailed.

Hi Jim, essentially, yes what you described at the end of your reply is correct. I would like the ability to reorder and rename dynamic parameters of dynamic components, as well as all of their nested children parameters and so on. Regarding your previous question, a master template in this context is the way that I've been building my DCs to this point. I'll build a functioning component, and then save off each part so that I can create variants, and still have all the same parameters. So as an example, lets say I've built a window that cuts into a surface, and showcases a single hung window. I've been saving off the window child component, creating a casement version, and swapping then back and forth to ensure they work flawlessly, and minimize the file size of the component. I can attach an example when I get back to a computer. The fact I said I'd be needing to make constant revisions may be an exaggeration, but my view is this: I'll be overhauling the use of SketchUp in the office to a more standardized system, and as users begin to adopt DCs and they become more useful, I may need to add features that I did not plan out or set aside in the first roll out of DCs. Adding new features shouldn't be too difficult, but seeing as how the order of the exposed parameters is reliant on alphabetical order in the DC options dialog, I don't see any other way to re-order them other than either manually renaming all the params through parent and child level components, or coming up with something more clever. Hopefully that makes sense, let me know if anything isnt clear. Thanks! Sent from my VS987 using Tapatalk

Exactly Dan, that was one of my mistakes. Finally I got it by myself, and now I understand the basics. Thank you in any case.

Angle snapping works for rotational tools or tool states. Length snapping would work for linear tool states.

additional observation: If onKeyDown or onKeyUp returns true then onCancel is not triggered. It is blocked by onKeyDown/onKeyUp as well.

For architects rendering output is needed, but sketchup output might be also worthy. I want my trees to project shadows, so I can study the project. There is also the fact that cast shadows from a 2d face me component, isn't compatible with renderers and sometimes you get thin flat shadows as shadows don't face sun. In my proposed solution the 2nd model can be a fairly rough 3d which casts 3d shadows that work. You can check a bit more about it here: http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=40%26amp;t=64471%26amp;p=591460%26amp;hilit=2.5d+components#p591460

What motivates me with programming plugins is that it allows me to be creative and create something that never existed before.

Thank you Masters. I have another problem: I wrote code to make BOM base on ComponentReport of TIG. Then I place data on a html datatable.So I have to replace all "\n" by "<br>" like this: des=c.definition.description des=des.gsub("\n","<br>") Then the datatable looks good. Then I save data in a .xlsx file. Still look good when openned in Excel. But when I inserted it to LayOut, it create "x000D" before every new line in cell. Please help me how to solve this. Thanks a lottt.

Wow, I got it to work!! require 'win32ole' xl = WIN32OLE;;connect('Excel.Application') xl.visible=1 worksheet = xl.Worksheets(1)

~ (1) Only write to paths that the user has write permissions on. @davesexcel said: # Puts in SketchUp install directory by default This path is a binary program path and the normal user does not have write permissions there. This is not the default path for Ruby when SketchUp v13+ is running. After SketchUp loads Ruby and it's API, it sets the working directory to the User's "Documents" directory. SketchUp 2013 and higher: Dir.pwd %(green)[#=> C:/Users/Dan/Documents] SketchUp 8 and earlier just left the current working directory in SketchUp's program path (which was a bad thing.) (2) In code when you are doing a write then read, you need to wait until the file is finished being written, and the OS file system advertises that it is "ready" and available. (ie, the old file handle is closed.) The Ruby standard File class has some class methods to help you determine if paths are readable or writable by the current user, and whether the OS reports if the file is finished being written (ie, does it exist yet?) def image_from_model( write_path = 'S;/Stairs/Stair Pics/', keys = { ;filename => 'write_image.jpeg', ;width => 500, ;height => 400, ;antialias => false, ;compression => 0.5, ;transparent => false } ) return false unless File.writable?(write_path) image_path = File.join( write_path, keys[;filename] ) keys[;filename]= image_path model = Sketchup.active_model view = model.active_view view.zoom_extents Kernel.sleep(2.0) # wait for view to redraw view.write_image(keys) @tid = UI.start_timer(0.5,true) { if File.exist?(image_path) UI.stop_timer(@tid) insert_to_excel(image_path) end } end def insert_to_excel() xl = WIN32OLE.new('Excel.Application') xl.visible=1 wb = xl.Workbooks.Open('C;\TestFolder\Test2.xlsx') worksheet = wb.Worksheets('Sheet1') worksheet2 = wb.Worksheets('Sheet2') worksheet.Range('a1').Value=12 worksheet.Range('a1;b4').Value #-----Pictures Insert Code--------------- pic = worksheet2.Pictures.Insert('S;/Stairs/Stair Pics/write_image.jpeg') range = worksheet2.Range('A1;F15') pic.ShapeRange.LockAspectRatio = false pic.Top = range.Top pic.Left = range.Left pic.Width = range.Width pic.Height = range.Height # write done message to SketchUp console; put "Finished inserting image in Excel." end

Unfortunately v2017 changes the way references can be got and reused. A few pointers... Use: entities = model.**active_**entities Also you can 'grep' to filter many kinds of 'collections' thus: puts face = entities.grep(Sketchup::Face)[0] return nil unless face The 'face' reference is lost in v2017 after the 'explode', instead consider this... group.explode puts face = group2.explode.grep(Sketchup::Face)[0] Now 'face' is a different, but valid, reference... I added the 'puts' to print the references in the Ruby Console. In < v2017 they should be the same, but in v2017 they will differ. This issue has meant that many authors have had to recode some of their plugins to accommodate the changes...