Running SketchUp with command line redirection

[Al Hart]

I want to explain to a client how to run SketchUp, and direct to output to a file.

e.g. C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8>sketchup > debug.txt

The user has never used a command prompt window before.

1. Is there an easy way to run Sketchup.exe with output redirection from Windows explorer.

2. Or is there some other easy to do this.

Also, I am worried that if she has Windows 7, she will not be able to write to a debug.txt file in Program files.

Any ideas?

[thomthom]

Send the client a shortcut they can run?
I got one on my desktop to start SU in debug mode - and it outputs the txt file on the desktop.

[Al Hart]

@thomthom said:

Send the client a shortcut they can run?
I got one on my desktop to start SU in debug mode - and it outputs the txt file on the desktop.

Can you send me (al.hart @ renderplus.com ) the shortcut, or post it here.

Thanks,

Al

[thomthom]

It's on my home computer, but it's not a universal shortcut - as it needs to fit the SU version, location (locale and 64/32bit OS differences), but it's just adding a shortcut with the > debug.txt argument.

[thomthom]

@al hart said:

One thing that makes this tricky is guessing whether the user has a 64-bit machine, Windows 7, etc. The user is in Australia, so I often only get to exchange 1 email per day because of the way our time zones overlap.

I guess you can make a BAT file that tests for common locations... ? Or pull the location from the registry.

@al hart said:

Also, what to you replace '> debug.txt' with to put it on the desktop?

I don't - that's all I do.
But if I use CMD and navigate to SU's folder and launch SU then the txt file is created in the SU folder. So it appear to depend on where you started SU from. Or maybe you can control this by using the "Start in" field on the shortcut properties.

[Al Hart]

Thanks for your help on this.

What to you replace '> debug.txt' with to put it on the desktop?

I guess I was hoping for a way for the client to navigate to the SketchUp folder, and then do something from Windows explorer.

I just went to explorer, right clicked on SketchUp.exe and selected "Create Shortcut", then clicked on the shortcut and selected properties.

But I can't figure out where to put the redirection?

---

[Al Hart]

oops - I edited my previous post while you were responding to it.

How do you redirect output in a shortcut?
I tried: "C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8" > debug.txt

and "C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8 > debug.txt"

In the target line, but neither worked.

[thomthom]

@al hart said:

oops - I edited my previous post while you were responding to it.

How do you redirect output in a shortcut?
I tried: "C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8" > debug.txt

and "C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8 > debug.txt"

In the target line, but neither worked.

About to head home now - but I noticed that the path you have there points to the SU folder - not the exe itself.

[mhd]

Here is what I threw together. Hope it helps.

---

A Batch file to write the debug output to the desktop

[thomthom]

Turns out, I was using a BAT file...
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Sketchup.exe" > myRubyLog.txt

[Al Hart]

@thomthom said:

Turns out, I was using a BAT file...
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Sketchup.exe" > myRubyLog.txt

My client figured out how to get to the DOS prompt. But I would still love to figure out a good way to do this.

I could create a batch file which the user could unzip into the SketchUp folder.

[Al Hart]

@thomthom said:

Turns out, I was using a BAT file...
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Sketchup.exe" > myRubyLog.txt

I create an image to a shortcut to the folder, however the proper shortcut still didn't work with either of these targets:

"C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8\SketchUp.exe" > debug.txt

"C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8\SketchUp.exe > debug.txt"

---

It turns out you can access the desktop with:

\users%USERNAME%\Desktop

as in:

echo xxx > \users%USERNAME%\Desktop\debug.txt

Here is a script which will work for 32 and 64 bit windows:

(I thought I would pass along my trick for making .bat files which work for both 32 and 64 bit systems)

@echo off

rem - goto proper Program Files
c;
if "%ProgramFiles(x86)%" == "" goto win32
    set PFILES=%ProgramFiles(x86)%
    goto process
;win32
    set PFILES=%ProgramFiles%

;process
echo executing "%PFILES%\Google\Google SketchUp 8\SketchUp.exe"
"%PFILES%\Google\Google SketchUp 8\SketchUp.exe" > \users\%USERNAME%\Desktop\debug.txt

echo load debug.txt in notepad.
notepad \users\%USERNAME%\Desktop\debug.txt

Unfortunately, when SketchUp produced its bug splat, it had not flushed its output.

[Al Hart]

I see that Sketchup replaces $stdout with #Sketchup::Console:0x365e1b0

It has a write method, but no flush method

$stdout.methods - Object.methods
["write"]

$stdout.flush
Error: #<NoMethodError: undefined method `flush' for #Sketchup::Console:0x365e1b0>

Maybe we can get SketchUp to add a flush method to Sketchup::Console

[Al Hart]

All this work trying to redirect output led me to come up with a ruby script which will redirect output, and flush the output file.

See: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=31160