New API doc - typos and questions

[daiku]

I just want to take a second to thank Thomas for his diligence in finding and documenting these inconsistencies. It's really going to make life easier for a lot of folks. CB.

[TIG]

Just noticed that 'behavior' has some typos in the examples - '.xxx =' rather than '.xxx=' ...

behavior.always_face_camera = NOT behavior.always_face_camera=
behavior.cuts_opening = NOT behavior.cuts_opening=
behavior.is2d = NOT behavior.is2d=
behavior.no_scale_mask = NOT behavior.no_scale_mask=
behavior.shadows_face_sun = NOT behavior.shadows_face_sun=
behavior.snapto = NOT behavior.snapto=

...

[thomthom]

What? Whitespace matters?
I always put space between = .I believe that I used .is2d = for my doublecut plugin, and that appeared to work as expected...

[TIG]

You are right in that it works... BUT the method is behavior.is2d= I thinks it's advisable to keep it like that...

[thomthom]

So this is a ruby thing? That the = is part of the method name? What about other operations where you use * - + / etc?
(I'm used to languages such as Javascript, PHP, VB, C# - still getting to grips with Ruby.)

[TIG]

All of these, a = 2, a= 2, a =2 and a=2 work fine, as do 1 + 2 and 1+2, but I think with methods it's at least advisable to stick to the way it's defined, like xxx.is2d= true and xxx.include?(4) etc...

It works either way, but...

[Jim]

@thomthom said:

So this is a ruby thing? That the = is part of the method name? What about other operations where you use * - + / etc?
(I'm used to languages such as Javascript, PHP, VB, C# - still getting to grips with Ruby.)

Yes, those are all methods. also [] and []= are methods. You can define them for you own classes, as well as modify them for existing classes.

class Array
  def [](index)
    return self[-index] # ha ha.
  end
end

[MarkBergaas]

Behavior.snapto

I see two problems with the documentation of this method (I would like to call it a property, but that is probably my C# habit talking):

The "Returns:" section says it returns true or false, but it actually returns one of the 4 values listed in the description above "Returns:" (the default seems to be SnapTo_Arbitrary). The first sentence of the description ("The snapto method is used to verify the status of a component's "snap to" behavior.") also implies that the return value is a status, not the actual "snap to" selection.

It would be very helpful if the documentation of this method would make it clear that the value of Behavior.snapto works in conjunction with the value of Behavior.is2d to set the "glue to" behavior. If is2d equals false, the component will not glue to anything, no matter what value snapto returns. If is2d equals true, the component will glue to faces matching the snapto value.

I don’t think it is at all clear that these two (snapto and is2d) are related. It would be helpful to include a reference to snapto in the description of is2d, also.

This second issue applies equally, if not more, to the snapto= and is2d= methods.

[Jim]

Pages.add should contain some of this information about the meaning of the flags argument.

[ and also, Pages.add returns a Page object, not nil. ]

# The Page Constants
Object.constants.grep /^pag/i
["PAGE_USE_SECTION_PLANES", "PAGE_USE_ALL", "PAGE_NO_CAMERA", "PAGE_USE_CAMERA", "PAGE_USE_RENDERING_OPTIONS", "PAGE_USE_SHADOWINFO", "PAGE_USE_SKETCHCS", "PAGE_USE_HIDDEN", "PAGE_USE_LAYER_VISIBILITY"]

model = Sketchup.active_model
pages = model.pages
index = 0
page = pages.add("New Page", PAGE_USE_ALL, index)

If you want to pick and choose which options, bitwise OR ( | ) the options together:

model = Sketchup.active_model
pages = model.pages
index = 0
page = pages.add("New Page", (PAGE_USE_HIDDEN|PAGE_USE_CAMERA), index)

[Jim]

View.write_image

From my tests, write_image will accept several common image formats - .jpg, .bmp, .png at least. There is no mention of this in the docu. Just include the extension in the filename - as in "path/to/my_image.png"

If you do not provide the optional width or height, the image uses the View Size for the written image.

write_image returns true on success or false on failure, not nil (from my experience.)

[thomthom]

Entities.add_arc
http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/entities.html#add_arc

@unknownuser said:

Returns:
arccurve
an ArcCurve object if successful

It returns an array of edges instead.

[avariant]

PolygonMesh.uv_at

Arguments;  
index    The index for the texture coordinate.

Doesn't include the second argument, which is true for front face coordinates, false for back face.

PolygonMesh.uvs
Doesn't include the required argument, true for front face coordinates, false for back face.

[thomthom]

Camera.set
http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/camera.html#set

@unknownuser said:

The initialize method is deprecated. It essentially does the same thing as Camera.set.

Camera.set does what Camera.set does? ... "Spider Pig! Spider Pig! Does whatever piderpigs does."

[thomthom]

View.pickray
http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/view.html#pickray

@unknownuser said:

The pickray method is used to retrieve a ray passing through a given screen position in the viewing direction.

Returns:
ray
a ray

The "ray" is a Line; Array [Point3D, Vector3D] and the Point3D is the camera.eye.

[Chris Fullmer]

I hope Scott stops by soon. He's got a lot of stuff here to pick up

Chris

[thomthom]

Looking back at this thread I can trail the subjects I was looking into while making plugins. Like breadcrumbs.

[TIG]

UI.menu lists the valid menus titles, one is 'Create' isn't it 'Draw' ?

[RunnerPack]

@unknownuser said:

Point3d.offset (http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/point3d.html#offset ) Description of the length parameter:

(optional) the distance to offset. If not provided, the offset is my a distance equal to the vector length.

Suggestion:

The (optional) offset distance. If not provided, the point is offset a distance equal to the vector's length.

[thomthom]

Face.mesh
http://code.google.com/intl/nb/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/face.html#mesh

@unknownuser said:

The mesh method creates a polygon mesh that represents the face. See the PolygonMesh class for more information.

Valid flags are:

* 0: Include PolygonMeshPoints,
* 1: Include PolygonMeshUVQFront,
* 2: Include PolygonMeshUVQBack,
* 4: Include PolygonMeshNormals.

Add these numbers together to combine flags. A value of 5 will include all flags, for example.

The example uses 7. Typo or undocumented feature?

[avariant]

@thomthom said:

The example uses 7. Typo or undocumented feature?

You can bit-wise OR the options together. 7 means 4 + 2 + 1, so normals, front UV, and back UV.