[Plugin] Material Tools

[TIG]

If you have a long list in a UI dialog you can click in the list pane and then use the up/down arrow keys to scroll to the item you want.
If you want to jump a long way up/down a list [i.e. to somethings that's off screen!] let's say you are on 'Aardvark' but you want to jump to 'White' then press the W key and it'll jump to the first W - perhaps 'Wheat' [assuming alphanumeric sorting], then you can press the down-arrow until 'White' is the select item...
It's not perfect... BUT it does allow you to access any item in an overly long list in a standard UI dialog...

[halroach]

@tig said:

If you have a long list in a UI dialog you can click in the list pane and then use the up/down arrow keys to scroll to the item you want.
If you want to jump a long way up/down a list [i.e. to somethings that's off screen!] let's say you are on 'Aardvark' but you want to jump to 'White' then press the W key and it'll jump to the first W - perhaps 'Wheat' [assuming alphanumeric sorting], then you can press the down-arrow until 'White' is the select item...
It's not perfect... BUT it does allow you to access any item in an overly long list in a standard UI dialog...

For some reason my list is not sorted alphanumerically... but your tip is good to know!

[TIG]

If you have an array of strings then array.sort! will sort it...
I'm unfamiliar with the code producing this list - but it should be easy enough to have an ordered list ??

[thomthom]

@tig said:

If you have an array of strings then array.sort! will sort it...

Since the list of SketchUp material names which is UTF-8 - meaning there can be multi-byte characters. And Ruby's #sort will mangle these characters because it treat each byte as individual characters.

This is another reason why a WebDialog is better - since one can make a dropdown box with scrollbar and utilize the fact the JS is Unicode compatible. (In addition I have a natural sort algorithm that would ensure that you get numbers in correct order ( 1,2,3,10...etc instead of 1,10,2,3... )

[EarthMover]

Thom, possible to add removing materials from all groups and components? Not the materials on the inside surfaces, just anything applied to a group or component itself and replacing it with default?

[TIG]

Something like

Sketchup.active_model.definitions.each{|d|next if d.image?;d.instances.each{|i|i.material=nil}}

for every group/instance in the model, ignoring whether visible/locked etc...
OR

Sketchup.active_model.selection.each{|e|e.material=nil if(e.is_a?(Sketchup;;Group)||e.is_a?(Sketchup;;ComponentInstance))&& !e.locked?)}}

to process all groups/instances in a selection, ignoring locked ones...
Copy/paste one-liners into the Ruby Console...

[rv1974]

Fantastic tools! Thank you.
What I really miss is additional script to assign the front faces material to backfaces (at least
on geometry with transparent mats).

[massimo]

@rv1974 said:

Fantastic tools! Thank you.
What I really miss is additional script to assign the front faces material to backfaces (at least
on geometry with transparent mats).

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=155759#p155759

[thomthom]

[thomthom]

oh... I might have forgotten to upload this little update...

[rv1974]

@thomthom said:

[attachment=0:37kfn04k]<!-- ia0 -->Transparent.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:37kfn04k]

What exactly do you ask?
If it's already there (the last line) I for some mystic reason don't have it (the version is updated)
If it's a printscreen of the latest future update- it looks awesome (exactly what I mean (if it processes entire model)).
P.S. How do you make the printscreen of the dropped down list???

[rv1974]

@thomthom said:

oh... I might have forgotten to upload this little update...

unpardonable forgetfulness

[thomthom]

Give me a couple of days. I need to release an update to TT_Lib2 first.

[rv1974]

Yet another thing:
Assign component\group mat to its front faces (to the inner geometry with default mat) would be amazing feature.
There's already the great 'remove C-G materials.rb' , something the opposite is also needed.

[thomthom]

How would you handle groups with faces of multiple materials? It's just not an symmetrical operation.

[rv1974]

@thomthom said:

How would you handle groups with faces of multiple materials? It's just not an symmetrical operation.

Only default material within the would inherit the comp\group mat. The manually set multiple mats would survive.

[thomthom]

Oh - I misread you. I thought you wanted face material to group materials.

You want the instance materials to be applied to all faces with default material in the group/component? That's already there: "Instance Material to Faces"

[rv1974]

damn how could I miss it.

[rv1974]

@thomthom said:

Give me a couple of days. I need to release an update to TT_Lib2 first.

...bump

[thomthom]

Yeeea.... didn't happen... I've run into a bug that needs fixing.