Engineer's notebook
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Dear All,
Like all worried folk, I tend to save copies of a model as I go along (V1, V1.1 etc), but sometimes I get myself into a pickle particularly if I am using different models (versions) to try out different design concepts (I know, poor discipline). In Inventor I can open up an Engineer's Notebook which is linked to the model (part or assembly). I can then use this 'notebook' to track changes. Here is an extract from Inventor's Help entry:
The Engineer's Notebook gives you the ability to create notes and store them as part of a model. A note can be attached to an edge, sketch, feature, part, or other selection in the model. Each note consists of a comment box and a view of the model. To start the engineer's notebook select a part in the graphic's window, RMB, and select Create Note. When you add the first note to a model, a notebook is created. You can add comment boxes or additional views to a note or add more notes to the notebook.
The Engineer's Notebook can be used to save the history of development or to provide reminders for project designers. Notes might include design strategy, reason for a design decision, manufacturing instructions, or information from a test or FEA calculation. Notes can contain links to external files, such as spreadsheets, word processing documents, graphics, or audio files.
In the Engineer's Notebook browser, each note is assigned a name and listed in the order in which it was created. You can organize the notes as follows:
- Rename notes to provide a more meaningful label.
- Change the sort order of the notes to sort by name, author, date, or text.
- Drag individual notes to change the order.
- Create additional folders and move notes into them. You can also specify a folder as the destination for all new notes.
End of extract.
What I should like is something similar for SU. Yes, I know I can open up a WordPad document and list the changes, but it would be really nice to be able to launch a 'notebook' inside SU and have it linked to the model. Perhaps there is a plugin that already does this.
Kind regards,
Bob -
Sounds like good plugin territory to me, it would certainly be a very useful tool. I can already think of a whole raft of uses.
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Some time ago I also requested some help in making a version tracker, note file. I tried to modify the “plugins_help_TIG.rb”, by TIG, however, I never could get the program to open Wordpad with the file name. Wish you luck.
Below my previous request.
“Hello
Would like to requests a script to open up either WordPad or Notepad while in SketchUp. I would like the script to creat a directory in the SketchUp program directory called “NOTES” and in this directory have creat three directories, called “GENERAL”, “CHANGES-MODS” and “VERSION TRACKER” if these directories are not present. I envision that all my projects Notes would be in these directories. This way it would make it easier for me to copy the notes for a project; I wouldn’t have to remember which directory the project has been stored into. On the road, I use different computers, so my projects and not always in the same directory.
After opening the script, I envision a choice of going to the, General, Change-Mods or Version Tracker to look up the notes and info for the open project.
I have an unbelievable amount of small paper notes, with all kinds of info for the project and it seems I never get all the information taken with me as I travel. So if I had one place to copy the Notes for a project I could keep up on the information overload I seem to be in during work.
I got this idea from using the scrip “plugins_help_TIG.rb”, by TIG. TIG thanks for this and all the other scripts you have written.
Thanks in advance. Hope I haven't offended anyone by making this request.
Ken”
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Dear Ken,
I already use SU's native functions of Layers and Notes to annotate drawings, with the notes on the Layer 'Notes' which I can then switch off when not needed, but this approach is rather limited. One could image an extra option in Entity Info which opened up the notebook and steered you to the last entry (if one existed), or allowed a further option of 'New' to create a new note. The Outliner would then be updated to show that a note has been added to a component or group. Using the Entity Info box would allow one to burrow down to single entities, such as lines or surfaces. As you suggest, the notebook should be stored in a folder like Plugins, Materials etc, and have its own browser so that one could browse, edit, delete etc notebooks.
Regards,
Bob -
I forgot to mention that I did manage to change the Calc program to open up Wordpad.exe. I have forgotten who wrote the calc program to give thanks to. So if you wrote the Calc program, I certainly hope you don’t mind the change, and a big thanks.
I take no credit for the below code, I copied and changed the code to open Wordpad. This is how I now enter notes for each version of a model I am working on.
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Dear Ken,
I will give this a go when I get to the office, but perhaps you should post the ruby in the plugins section so that others can find it. Thank you for posting it in the first place.
Kind regards,
Bob -
Dear Ken,
I came across this freeware when looking for screen capture programs.
Perhaps it could be used with your notes script to create illustrated documents. I haven't tried it myself and so I cannot make a recommendation. It does allow one to annotate the image after capture, which is likely to prove useful.
Kind regards,
Bob
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