Any way to protect selected guides?

joshvt

Does anyone know if a plug in exists that allows you to lock certain guides so they are not deleted when you choose edit>delete guides. This would be useful in complex structures where a guide is desired at say the floor line for reference but you do not want it to delete when all other old guides are deleted. Curious if a script or plug in exists?

Thanks
J

Jim

@joshvt said:

Does anyone know if a plug in exists that allows you to lock certain guides so they are not deleted when you choose edit>delete guides. This would be useful in complex structures where a guide is desired at say the floor line for reference but you do not want it to delete when all other old guides are deleted. Curious if a script or plug in exists?

Thanks
J

Hi J,

I don't think it can be done the way you describe it - there is no way to stop the built-in Edit>Delete Guides command from deleting all Guides. The best I can think of right now is a plugin that will:

Allow you to right-click a Guide (or a set of selected guides) to "Save" it for future reference.
Delete all Guides
Have a menu item that will re-create the previously "Saved" Guides.

Gaieus

Well, exactly the same could be done by

selecting the guides to be kept
copying them onto the clipboard
deleting all guides (the normal way)
restoring the wanted ones by "Paste in place"

Now if you could automate it with a ruby (preferably after placing the desired guides into a group or onto a certain layer), it could go easily.

Interesting however, that in SU 5 (as far as I remember - I'll have to check at home), construction lines (as they were called than) within a group didn't delete when using the "delete construction geometry" command (somehow like hidden lines in a group don't unhide when you use "unhide all").

Jim

Heh, I invented cut & paste!

david_h

I have been using this method to protect guides. I also Like to create a group of guides and lock them, but it would be nice if there was a "lock guideliness" ruby so that could be toggled on and off. Any of you gurus care to take that one on???

Thanks

D

Gaieus

@jim said:

Heh, I invented cut & paste!

Yes and I do use this method for real geometry very often, too.

Just imagine a complex intersection after which you need to clean up a lot of the unwanted pieces.

Now I just quickly select what I want to keep, copy it then select all, delete everything and paste in place what I want(ed) to keep.

TIG

Unfortunately the built-in 'delete guides' menu item removes all guides [lines and points] in the model - including any in groups or component-instances [including locked ones] and even guides stored in 'off' layers - however, guides within a component definition that has no instances in the model are safe...
Two years ago I wrote a set of context-menu tools to deleted guide-lines / -points 'selectively' - here's an update ConsDeleteContext.rb I would also be possible to write a new tool to 'preserve selected guides' - it would duplicate them in a new definition that had no instances [with a bit of vertical 'edge' ([0,0,0],[0,0,1]) at the origin***], later you could choose to 'restored preserved guides' and it would place an instance of that component [at the origin, erasing the temporary 'edge' there ? *** I haven't quite worked through how the guide-component 'insertion' point is kept for later reinsertion - but it will be possible], then explode the instance and then delete that component-definition's entities, thereby purging it from the component-browser's list. Of course purging the model's unused components in between times would delete the preserved-guide component and the saved guides would be lost - just like copying something new to the clipboard loses the current data. The 'preserve selected guides' would be like using the clipboard and it'd overwrite any already preserved, but it could be set to warn if there is an existing preserved set [i.e not yet restored] that'd be lost in the process, and it'd ask you either to overwrite the set or to add these new guides to the existing set ?

Unfortunately I'm stowed under will other things, and I'm unlikely to be able to look at this before sometime in June! - but if anyone wants to take up the ideas feel free...