Quickly rename layers on several components

[nrschmid]

I created several dozen components at my last job. The employer had a very specific standard for layer names. Now I am working at a different company which has a different standard for layer names. I still have the components from the last job. Is there a way to quickly rename the layers according to the current company's standard? Perhaps a batch utility or rubyscript?

Thanks-

[Gaieus]

Well, what you could easily do is to import all your components (they would probably share common layers), rename these layers and just save all components again.

Certainly a plugin would be best - don't know if one exists but I move the topic to the plugins forum and let's see what the gurus find out

[nrschmid]

That seemed to work. However when I save it back to the original file location on the network, Sketchup tacks on an underscore and a number at the end of the file name so I have to override this. In the layers box, I can create a new layer in the new sketchup file, delete the old layers (from the imported components) that I don't want and it will merge those items onto the new layer.

However, I came across a few other issues. Is there a rubyscript or batch file to quickly change the definition on components? Do I have to do this manually? When I import several components into one sketchup file, the library shows the old definition names even after I rename them. Even if I reimport the components into a differetnt sketchup file, the definition name in the library is still the older name, even though the entity info for the individual component shows the revised name. Any ideas?

Thanks-

[MartinRinehart]

Did you ever program anything in any language?

You'll need a list of old names and new names. In Ruby array notation (enclose the array with [ and ], enclose the names in quotes and separate array members with commas, like this:

list = [ ["first_old_name", "replacement_for_it"], ["next_old_name", "next_replacement_name"], ... ]

Create such a list and you are about 90% done with the project. I, or one of the smart people who inhabit this forum, will help you with the other 10%.

[MartinRinehart]

@gaieus said:

Certainly a plugin would be best

Gaieus, you do know that my "how to Ruby" section of the tutorial is well underway, don't you? No programming experience required:

Martinrinehart.com

(www.martinrinehart.com)