SketchUp RUBY API Wishlist [way of coding wishes, please]

scottlininger

Hey guys,

My goal is to check these forums every day to see if I can be of help. I'm one of the "new guys" on the SketchUp team, having been with Google for about a year, now. In my day to day job I mostly work in the Ruby API, so I'm in the same boat as you in regards to its capabilities, and I'm an internal advocate for improvements.

Maybe a moderator could split this into a new topic? I'd love to hear everyone's wish list.

In any case, I will do some research into these posted bugs and confirm that they are in our internal tracking system.

Cheers,

MarcioAB

Great! A "Ruby API Wish List Followed by SketchUp Team". This could be a sticker, right ?

The most up-to-date "Wish List" in the very first page and good discussions in the sub-sequent pages.

Regards
Marcio

tomasz

Scott,
I 've got one, almost a Christmas wish : - can Ruby tell me if I should use UVHelper instead of uv_at when I want to get proper UVs for a face, PLEASE!

I other words - can Ruby tell me if the face's texture is photo-matched or not?
Please check this thread. Could it be an additional .materialType result .. say 3?

Tomasz

Jim

Thanks for starting this topic, Scott!

Ok, I split this topic off from the earlier posts and made it sticky. Let the wishing continue...

MarcioAB

Fix onMButtonDown() api.

CPhillips

Here is one (of 1000):

The text and dimension tool are not accessible from Ruby. You can't read or set the text for example.

tomasz

The Sections are hardly accessible from Ruby, only through Selection! You can't read or set it active.

daiku

This is music to my ears, Scott. Here's another vote for ruby control of dimension objects. CB.

toxicvoxel

Two requests:
Simple methods for retrieving points,angles and distances without using a tool class.(Something as simple as 'getpoint' and getangle in AutoCAD's api. Maybe something like pt=Sketchup.utility.getpoint(prompt) for example)
'Getangle' should offer the use of the protractor tool for input.

Then a request for the Sketchup COM api: Include a 'runRubyScript' method that can be called from the api and returns the return value from the script.

Matt666

Hi all !
One great improvment would be to have some control on inferences via ruby... Isolate, stop, start, etc....

NewOne

Move (and rotate) axes from ruby !!! Actually, to be able to access any tool from ruby.

regards!

Matt666

Hi all !
One ruby improvment :

A command autolisp like function !! To have access to all native tools (like said NewOne), and to have possibility to control this tool !
Command autolisp function work like that :
To make a line :

(command "_LINE" "0,0,0" "10,0,0" "")
(command " 'International Name of the tool' " " 'first point' " " 'any point you want' " "")

"" stops the command.
One very intersting thing is you can insert pause that let user doing what he wants !

(command "_LINE" "0,0,0" PAUSE" "")

PAUSE stops process and let user giving a point, in this example.
Another cool thing is an Autocad variable that show if a command (or tool) is active. And you can use it in the code !

(command "_LINE")(while (not (eq (getvar "cmdactive") 0)))(command PAUSE))

(getvar "cmdactive") returns 0 (no active tool) or 1 (one active tool)

tomasz

Selection display bug to be fixed, please.

Jim

Something I have been wanting to do is write a suite of general-purpose Observers based on the built-in ones. Most of the Observers are designed to be attached to a specific entity in a model (or to THE model) - the SelectionObserver, for example is attached to a model's selection collection. It just seems inefficient and error-prone for each plugin author who needs one to implement their own SelectionObserver when a single instance can handle all requests.

So, I guess I'm really proposing a simplified API for using Observers.

The way I see this API working is that a plugin would 'require' the observer file, which would create a single Observer instance. Then the plugin would 'register' methods in the form of blocks (or procs?). In my experiments, I used the Ruby Singleton class to ensure there is ever only one instance created.

Here is how I see the API being used (without getting into the details of the implementation):


# My Plugin
require 'app_observer' # Global AppObserver instance created
def hello(args)
  puts "Hello #{args}"
end
# Register hello() to be called for an onNewModel event
id = AppObserver.instance.register("onNewModel") {|args| hello(args) }
# AppObserver attaches itself when its registry goes from 0 to >0 elements
...
AppObserver.instance.unregister(id) # stop calling hello for onNewModel event
# AppObserver detaches itself when its registry falls to 0 elements.

It really simplifies using Observers, which in turn could allow authors to create better plugins, with more advanced features, in a shorter time. It may also save on resources by having one and only one instance of most of the Observers (confirm?)

(related post)

david.

Jim,

Nice idea. Also, I'm curious if you mixed in the Singleton module to implement your singletons? I've found that I can't require a library module like Singleton unless I point directly to my Ruby installation directories. I realize that this isn't required to implement singletons, but it seems the most simple and consistent.

Jackson

Welcome to SCF Scott, it's great to see your involvement here!

scottlininger

@jim said:

Something I have been wanting to do is write a suite of general-purpose Observers based on the built-in ones.

This is a fantastic idea. Attaching observers reliably to every component instance, for example, is challenging. So a helper script is one approach... another would be to create some uber-observers at the Sketchup level. Obviously, there are potential performance concerns with any of these.

JClements

A standard for displaying script documentation, besides their description, in the menus:

The ruby filename, creator, version level; basically an "about" display for each script. Optional info could be copyright info, contact (email) link, website link, and display of a help file on a local drive.

=============================================

An easier way to organize scripts in a user defined menu (there are scripts that do this now, but I wouldn't call them user friendly)

tomasz

New method for a texture, very useful for exporters.
texture.alpha_channel? -> (true or false)

Whaat

@unknownuser said:

New method for a texture, very useful for exporters.
texture.alpha_channel? -> (true or false)

Ooohhh..that reminds me:

How about a method that samples the texture color on a face?

face.color_at(u,v)->returns a SketchUp::Color object.

Could be used for displacement mapping inside SketchUp for example.