Adding dynamic attributes to multiple objects

[thomthom]

You want to add an attribute to all instances of a definition?

Then you can add the attribute to the definition instead of the instances. Just make sure to remember to check the definition whenever you access it.

[NewGuy]

I think set_attribute is what I was looking for.

[NewGuy]

Is there a way to toggle the attribute so that "Users can edit as a textbox" in the Component Attributes panel?

[Jim]

That's all controlled by specially named attributes in the "dynamic_attributes" dictionary. If you have Pro, you can edit them in the Attributes Editor, so I'm assuming you are using the Free version?

[Jim]

Here is a DC with a single editable Textbox for an attribute named Color. Maybe it'll help

---

lemon_box.skp

[NewGuy]

I am using Pro but I am more interested in mass dumping attributes to objects that users using Pro can see. I am able to add the attributes using set_attribute but they show up as "User cannot see this attribute". How can I add an attribute so a user can see it or edit it?

Thanks,

[Jim]

You need to inspect the "dynamic_attributes" dictionary. It uses meta-attributes that begin with an underscore to store meta-data about other attributes, such as if it has an entry in the Options dialog.

So for the model I attached previously, there is an attribute named "color", but also several that begin with "_color". These are what control how it appears in the Options dialog. I don't know the details of what all the meta-attributes are or do. You probably will need to reverse engineer them.

[Jim]

So I was able to add a "Quantity" textbox to the user options dialog with the following code:

ad = selection[0].definition.attribute_dictionaries["dynamic_attributes"]

ad["quantity"] = "1"
ad["_quantity_access"] = "TEXTBOX"
ad["_quantity_formlabel"] =  "Quantity"

[thomthom]

Didn't realise one could set attributes like that.

[Jim]

Yeah, it wouldn't actually be too hard to create a DC editor for non-pro users.

I was considering doing a specialized one just for animating doors and windows.

[thomthom]

I meant the way you added items to AttributeDictionaries. I've always used the explicit set_attribute method.

[Jim]

set_attribute and get_attribute are probably better to use in the long run, if changes were ever made internally they would likely still work.

[thomthom]

heeeey? where was that comment of being able to remove attributs using set_attribute? mind trixies!

[Jim]

It was wrong! I was thinking of something else. There was what I thought an odd way to delete an attribute, but I think it was an odd way to delete the entire dictionary.

[thomthom]

set_attribute can potentially kill the whole dictionary??

[Jim]

Ok, this is what I was remembering:

delete_attribute can delete the entire dictionary if the value param is not used.

http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/entity.html#delete_attribute

@unknownuser said:

Entity.delete_attributeSketchUp 6.0+

The delete_attribute method is used to delete an attribute from an entity.

If only the dictionary_name is given, then it deletes the entire AttributeDictionary. Otherwise, delete_attribute deletes the attribute with the given key from the given dictionary.

[Dan Rathbun]

@jim said:

Ok, this is what I was remembering:

Entity.delete_attribute can delete the entire dictionary if the value param is not used.

AGREED !

There should have been (should be,) an explicit Entity.delete_dictionary method (even if it calls the other one with 'secret' parameters. Of course the safest way is to rename and then override the delete_attribute method, so only a call to a delete_dictionary method would do the deletion.
Which may actually be how things work with delete_attribute, ie if num args == 1 then it calls the Entity.attribute_dictionaries.delete(arg) method. )

[NewGuy]

Guys,
Thanks for your help! Great insight.