[Plugin] LordOfTheToolbars - v2.9c - 20 Dec 24

Dave R

I have noticed that regularly my LOTT toolbars don't appear when loading SU.
It seems it's related to updates.

Are you still using SketchUp 2017 Pro as indicated in your profile?

Was SketchUp installed correctly? That requires right clicking on the downloaded installer and selecting Run as administrator. If not, there would be issues with folder permissions that could prevent extensions from installing/updating correctly.

I've never had any issues with any of Fredo6's extensions updating and loading correctly. I made sure to install SketchUp correctly on my machines.

optimaforever

@dave r said:

@optimaforever said:

I have noticed that regularly my LOTT toolbars don't appear when loading SU.
It seems it's related to updates.

Are you still using SketchUp 2017 Pro as indicated in your profile?

Was SketchUp installed correctly? That requires right clicking on the downloaded installer and selecting Run as administrator. If not, there would be issues with folder permissions that could prevent extensions from installing/updating correctly.

I've never had any issues with any of Fredo6's extensions updating and loading correctly. I made sure to install SketchUp correctly on my machines.

Thanks Dave.
I've updated my profile (sorry I use SU since v2.1 circa 2001 so this was pretty obvious for me that I use the latest build but you're right, let's update this ).
I don't think I installed SU as an admin because my Win11 account is an admin account.
I never had any issues prior to this but since Win11 i have had so many bugs...
So you mean that in your case, plugins updates automatically without asking/notifying you?

Dave R

@optimaforever said:

I've updated my profile

Thanks for updating it.

@optimaforever said:

I don't think I installed SU as an admin because my Win11 account is an admin account.

Unfortunately that's not the same as using Run as administrator. I would suggest that you close SketchUp, find the installer or get it from sketchup.com/download/all, right click on it, choose run as administrator, and then, when prompted, choose Repair.

@optimaforever said:

I never had any issues prior to this but since Win11 i have had so many bugs...

Are you running the Developer Preview build of Win11? That has been problematic for many users, not just of SketchUp. I've avoided the Preview build but I recently saw the text of an e-mail sent from Windows to someone who is using that build. The text indicated that 3rd party applications could be compromised and the advise was to avoid using 3rd party software on the Preview build.

@optimaforever said:

So you mean that in your case, plugins updates automatically without asking/notifying you?

No! Not at all. I periodically open the Sketchucation Extension Store UI to see if it indicates there are any extensions that have updates available and then I use the update feature to install them. In fact Fredo6 just released an update to LibFredo6 a little bit ago and I updated it.

fredo6

NEW RELEASE: LordOfTheToolbars v2.4a - 29 Nov 22

Requirements

LibFredo6: v13.6a or above
Sketchup version: SU2017 and above

LordOfTheToolbars 2.4a includes

Bug fixing about the selection context menu

DO NOT FORGET TO UPGRADE TO LibFredo6 v13.6a or above

Home Page of LordOfTheToolbars for information and Download.

Main post of this LordOfTheToolbars thread.

uwesketch

Hi Fredo,
this is a perfect tool to organize and combine the toolbar buttons. Thanks.
I have a plugin DL light that comes itself with a dozen tool bars and each toolbar has more than 10 buttons. To not get too many entries in the vignette stripe, I put them all in one palette.
But then it is difficult to distinguish them.
Is there a possibility to add a text separator in a palette?
Like this I could add a short name (e.g. original toolbar name) at the beginning of each line of buttons in the palette.
Or instead putting an empty line between two rows of buttons, have some text.
Kind Regards Uwe

fredo6

You can put line breaks and separators, but not a text. You can also enlarge the size of the palette to make the icons more distinguishable.

You could also create custom commands with a specific icon (doing nothing special by themselves) and use them at the beginning of a line break to indicate the family of icons of the DL Light toolbars.

Last possibility: ask the author of DL Light to make icons more distinguishable at reasonable pixel size.

uwesketch

Ok, clear: Palettes may only contain buttons with icons by design.

What I like, is that if a plugin is deactivated/disabled in EM, that then the Icons in the palettes are still visible.
Therefor I wonder, if it would be possible, that in case a Plugin is disabled, you would add an option in the context menu of the button in the palette that allows me to activate the related plugin (either temporary or permanent).
Like this I could deactivate most plugins and activate them only when needed - right from the LOTT palette with a single click.

While playing around, I figured, that when activating any Fredo Plugin in the EM, I get an error:
Error when activating a Fredo Plugin

fredo6

If a plugin is deactivated in the Plugin Manager, it may require a restart of Sketchup to be loaded. This is the case of some of my plugins, because of menus and dependencies with LibFredo6 (hence the message).

However, there is no hurt in loading plugins, whether used or not. My plugins just loads the minimum to appear in menu and toolbars. The rest of the code is loaded on the fly at first utilisation.

uwesketch

These messages are not really user friendly, but also not a killer.

Using LOTT, it means for me, I do not need additional toolbars in Sketchup. Only LOTT palettes.
As the plugin buttons are already „registered“ in the palettes, I do not need the sketchup toolbars to be loaded, when enabling a plugin.
LOTT should just enable the greyed out button in the palette as soon as a plugin gets enabled.

For example, when enabling the plugin „Eneroth Reference manager“, the Sketchup toolbar and menu entries get created without restating Sketchup. But the buttons in the palette stay greyed out. This is not nice.

The reason why I do not enable all installed plugins is that Sketchup starts much quicker without.

rv1974

Thanks to LOTT transition to 2023 took seconds
BTW at last 2023 contains users shortcuts in the search

laurent002

Bonjour,
Je viens d'essayer sketchup 2023, mais il semble que l'on ne peut avoir accès dans master toolbar manager aux menus, ce qui empêche de créer les icons et les toolbar.

Merci
Bonne journée à vous

fredo6

@laurent002 said:

Je viens d'essayer sketchup 2023, mais il semble que l'on ne peut avoir accès dans master toolbar manager aux menus, ce qui empêche de créer les icons et les toolbar.

Yes. For the Windows version, I had to remove everything related to Menus, as well as the Clean Screen feature... This is due to the new GUI framework that comes with SU2023.

Gordon McLaren

Hi Fredo,
Thank you for all the fantastic work you do.
I use the "Personal Command Menu" often and would definitely like to see it working again. Are you able to re-write the part of your script that references the "GUI framework"?
This would be very much appreciated.
Kind regards,
Gordon

fredo6

@gordon mclaren said:

Are you able to re-write the part of your script that references the "GUI framework"?

Nope. The new GUI framework precisely allows no access to menus any longer, even with hacking.

panixia

@gordon mclaren said:

I use the "Personal Command Menu" often and would definitely like to see it working again.

I have a workaround for this.
Assign some weird shortcut to your menu item (I say "weird" because maybe you don't want to waste some available handy keyboard shortcut for this).
Then create a ruby script button and type in the following:

shell = WIN32OLE;;new("WScript.Shell")
shell.SendKeys "InsertYourWeirdSendkeyShortcutHere"

Insert your shortcut between quotes using the "Microsoft sendkeys" syntax, you can find the reference at this link:

SendKeys statement (VBA)

Office VBA reference topic

(learn.microsoft.com)

Here's an example.. this one would be equivalent to press "Ctrl+Shift+ALt+F11" each time you push hit the toolbar button.

kaas

@panixia said:

..I have a workaround for this....

shell = WIN32OLE;;new("WScript.Shell")
> shell.SendKeys "InsertYourWeirdSendkeyShortcutHere"
>

Just be aware that this fix won't last forever. I'm using it in one of my plugins and SU2022 is already warning me it will be deprecated in a next version of Ruby.

panixia

@kaas said:

Just be aware that this fix won't last forever. I'm using it in one of my plugins and SU2022 is already warning me it will be deprecated in a next version of Ruby.

Well, I'm not a developer so I don't know a lot about this.. I've just found this snippet long ago to make it work with the old "Toolbar Editor" plugin.
Actually I don't need this that much right now, because I still use 2021 with classic perpetual license and LOTT works like a charm in SU21.
By the way I tested this in 2023 and it works 100% for now.
Maybe in future Ruby version this will be replaced with some different syntax to handle Sendkeys

Gordon McLaren

Thanks for all the suggestions/workarounds, I will give them a try.

rv1974

@Fredo is implementing of multiple key shortcuts is possible via plugin? A-la Revit, for example - EP for 'edit profile builder's path'?

Gordon McLaren

@Panixia - Thanks once again for the work-around, I have implemented it and it works like a charm.