How do you make plug-ins for sketchup

BTM

Heh, I've been wondering how to make ruby scripts aswell. Apparently if functions are part of ruby, so I have a start

Pilou, moi aussi je sais comment de parler le français! C'est pas une langue très dificile à apprendre, mais il y a trop de verbes, et c'est difficile de savoir si quelque chose est masculin ou feminin. En anglais, nous avons pas de masculin ou feminin pour les objets non-vivants

Aussi, qu'est ce que ton signature veut dire? "Is beautiful that please without concept!" en français veut dire "Est belle que s'il-vous-plait sans concept" Je ne le comprend pas...

Chris Fullmer

Are you actually interested BTM? There's been quite a few of us Ruby newbs hanging out here lately, and I think we've mostly shown that the learning goes pretty fast once you get into it.

I'm currently putting together a tutorial for the SCF tutorials on how to start learning Ruby. But you really don't need to wait for anything like that. Start teaching yourself Ruby using Chris Pine's ruby tutorial. Its a great place to get started with Ruby. Then once you get the hang of the basic syntax, its time to dig into the SketchUp specific stuff.

Chris

BTM

what text editor do you use to write code, Chris?

jeff hammond

@unknownuser said:

How do you make plug-ins for sketchup

me?
by begging

takesh h

@unknownuser said:

what text editor do you use to write code, Chris?

I guess this thread will answer to most of your questions about Ruby.
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=10142&p=65928#p65928

Chris Fullmer

I personally use notepad++ currently. And I use Jim's Web Console inside of SU. I use it to test chunks of code and then I copy them into notepad++ once I get things running as expected.

Chris

BTM

...any mac versions or mac text editors? I thought I could use textedit, but it doesn't have any way to save as ruby files. Neither does pages, but word seems to be able to save as ruby if I type .rb in manually. Still, a mac text editor would help.

jeff hammond

i think a lot of the mac heads use TextMate

http://macromates.com/

REGIS

Hi

Smultron can do it on mac, it's free.

regards

RickW

My MacBook has Xcode or something like that (I'm not a "Mac person" - I just got one for self-preservation for dual-platform SU ruby development ). It's color coded and has auto-completion capabilities as you type.

REGIS

@rickw said:

My MacBook has Xcode or something like that

You are a lucky guy RickW, I can't find Xcode on my mac (perhaps I got to check my cd install to find xcode ?)

I checked out this link and I'm not sure it's free.
BTW, thanks for the info RickW

Regards

Chris Fullmer

This is some good info on Mac code editors. I'll include it in whatever little tutorial I get thrown together.

BTM

I have Xcode too, downloaded smultron anyways, they both seem good, Xcode a little more complicated, but does have menus for picking the exact thing you want to make ( like ruby extentions), but I don't know which one's better.
...Anyone out there have experience with these sorts of things?

Chris Fullmer

Hey not too bad! Just keep that up and you're well on your way. Once you get the standard flow control methods down (which you have, the if/else/end, until/end, array.each do/end) your set. Then its time to dig into the sketchup API to see what methods/classes/modules that SketchUp has added to Ruby.

Chris

BTM

Nevermind, Xcode's my pick. I made my first ruby code too (not for sketchup)

keycode = false
puts 'INPUT CODE'
code = gets.chomp
puts 'CODE RECIEVED'
while (not keycode)
	puts 'INPUT CODE TO UNLOCK'
	if gets.chomp == code
		keycode = true
		puts 'ACCESS GRANTED'
	else
		puts 'ACCESS DENIED'
	end
end

It's a good thing I've used sketchyphysics before, or I would have no idea what I was doing.

Jim

@unknownuser said:

.also, how do you add global variables throughout the script? Is it still setVar("foo",1), getVar("foo"), and getSetVar("foo",0)?

These are not part of the Ruby API - they must be part of the SketchyPhysics API (to confuse things even further.)

BTM

Just looked it up in that pine-something-or-other tutorial. So it's if you put a @ in front of a variable that makes it global?

BTM

I've been taking a look at the sketchup API, and am currently a bit intimidated.
I never realized how many different methods, classes and modules there would be! Up until now, everything I've done has been very simple, but I don't even understand half of what these things mean, and it would take me forever to find anything specific!
...also, how do you add global variables throughout the script? Is it still setVar("foo",1), getVar("foo"), and getSetVar("foo",0), like in sketchyphysics?

Chris Fullmer

SketchUp has (at least)

variable - local variable
@variable - Instance variable
@@variable - Class Variable
$variable - Global Variable

local variables are available only within the method in which they are defined.
Instance Variables are available through the entire class instance.
Class Variables are available for all instances of a class.
Global variables are available for all classes. They can be accessed from any ruby script. If you make one called $my_special_global_variable and someone else makes one with the same name, there will be a conflict.

I know that doesn't explain instance and class vairables very well. Sorry, I'll have a go at it.

In SketchUp, when you make a tool, you make it as a class. So every time the tool gets activated, it creates a new instance of the class. Instance variables are only available within that instance of the class. When the tool is activated again, those old instance variables are not available to the new instance. But Class variables would be available from one activation of the tool (instance of the class) to the next. So lets say that you have a tool that draws a circle and the user can input the size and segments of the circle. If you used an instance variable to hold the user input size and segment count, then the tool keep their values only while it was active. Once they de-activate the tool, then re-activate it, it creates a new instance of the tool, and the instnace variables are lost, so it would return back to whatever defaults the script provides. But if you use Class variables, then those variables stay active from one activation of the tool to the next. They only get reset once SketchUp is closed down and restarted.

Thats it to the best of my understanding. I only really understand this within a SketchUp context. So I'm sure there;s more to it than just that. But that is a start on local, instance, class, and global variables.

There are also constants, symbols, and maybe more? THey are types of variables I think.

Chris

l.frisken

I've started trying to learn how to use ruby but I'm having a lot of trouble getting input points to work. U'm what would be the simplest way for me to make a simple tool that tells me the coordinates in 3 dimensions of whatever I'm clicking on?