[Plugin] Select component instances on right click

[TIG]

Take care making selection sets that span different contexts - you can Bugsplat it you try to manipulate them !
To select instances of similar named definitions this will work

n="match";m=Sketchup.active_model;s=m.selection;s.clear;m.definitions.each{|d|s.add d.instances if d.name=~/#{n}/}

Change the string 'match' within the "" to the pattern match you want - I suggest that you read-up of pattern-matching - e.g. n="[Cc]at" finds all definitions like 'Cat', 'cat1', 'tomcat', whereas anchoring the pattern to the start/end like this n="^[Cc]at" only matches 'Cat and 'cat1', or n="m[Cc]at$" to only matches '#tomcat' and 'TomCat'...

[Abdullah]

It didn't work first, because there was a "$" in the string (it looked like "abc$match"), so took only the part after "$" (and it looked like "match")and it work well. Thank you very much.

By the way, are there any "good" Sketchup Ruby Tutorials/Books for Beginners? I would really like to learn it.

[TIG]

@abdullah said:

It didn't work first, because there was a "$" in the string (it looked like "abc$match"), so took only the part after "$" (and it looked like "match")and it work well. Thank you very much.
By the way, are there any "good" Sketchup Ruby Tutorials/Books for Beginners? I would really like to learn it.
Look for Automatic Sketchup - as a pdf or a to-buy hard-copy.
There are also several other links in the "developers' forum"...
If you place a $ at the very end it says the pattern ends there.
If you want to search for a '$' inside the text escape it '$'; same with the '^' which marks the very beginning.
Here's a short guide to pattern matching... http://www.tutorialspoint.com/ruby/ruby_regular_expressions.htm

[John_C]

That's great, thanks ...

[fullyfledgeded]

Hi, Is there any way of selecting component families even if they are in groups or nested within other components? The only way i can get it to work with this plugin is if i explode until all desired components are no longer grouped or component nested.

[fullyfledgeded]

Thanks TIG and Abdullah for sorting out a that code I was frantically, searching the forum for a solution that i missed this code.

Alot of my component instances, have annoyingly renamed, with #1, #2 etc added to them, ultimately creating new component definitions, increasing file size

now that i can select multiple instances at once, I can replace them with one component definition.

However I still don't why this is happening, other people have this problem too:

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=22523

might start a new post to see if there is any more info

cheers

[smicha]

Great plugin. Thanks

[Sir]

fantastic plugin. extremely useful.

thanks