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

Dan Rathbun

Being able to set Layer colour.

..and also a "getter" method to read the color.

Actually when you manually click the color button in the Layers dialog, the Edit Material dialog appears. If you choose 'Use texture image' and assign a texture file, the layer will be displayed with that texture over the layer color, when 'Color by Layer' is true, and rendering mode is 'Shaded with Textues'.

Issues:
(1) Technically, Layers have a material attribute that holds a Sketchup::Material object.
(2) These material objects ARE saved with the model, but NOT accessible thru the API.
(3) When a layer is assigned a texture, it does not appear in the "In Model" Materials Collection, and it shouldas well as allow us to assign a name (thru the layer's material object.)
In the UI manual mode the new material could be given a temporary name equal to the Layer name, so the user could manually rename it thru the Materials Browser, or we could name it in a subsequent ruby statment like:
model.materials['Layer3'].name='PolishedWood'
We should also then be able to go totally automatic thru the API, thus:
mat = model.materials.add('PolishedWood') mat.texture = 'wood/polished.png' mat.color = [195,144,86] model.layers['Layer3'].name = 'Surface' model.layers['Surface'].material = 'PolishedWood' model.rendering_options['DisplayColorByLayer'] = true
Later on getting a layer's color, we could do:
surfaceColor = model.layers['Surface'].material.color
and setting it to some other color:
surfaceColor = [127,127,200] model.layers['Surface'].material.color = surfaceColor [*]

****** So what we really need is the Sketchup::Layer object's material attribute getter and setter methods exposed in the API, along with the manual UI naming hack.

EDIT: [* (2010AUG05) Added missing "wish" statement to set layer color.]

kwalkerman

Seconded on the Layers usability, also, it would be great to be able to do:

Layers.active_layer
Layers[layer] = active

A consistent entityID would be awesome. The entity should maintain the ID if it is deleted, and then undeleted as well.

Pages:

In addition to retaining information on which layers are on and off, should also be able to retain the active layer for each page.

--
Karen

thomthom

hm... never thought of that inconsistency before...
model.materials.current vs model.active_layer

Dan Rathbun

@thomthom said:

hm... never thought of that inconsistency before...
model.materials.current vs model.active_layer

"current and "active" should aliases for each other.

kwalkerman

Cool. Thanks again.

Dan Rathbun

@kwalkerman said:

Cool. Thanks again.

No problem.

(bumping the topic..)

Made edits to the Layers code example* Added a second code example for Layer class.See previous post...

Jim

@kwalkerman said:

In addition to retaining information on which layers are on and off, should also be able to retain the active layer for each page.

I like this idea, particularly useful when adding text to Scenes. It seems quite possible using an Observer.

Jim

@dan rathbun said:

@thomthom said:

hm... never thought of that inconsistency before...
model.materials.current vs model.active_layer

"current and "active" should aliases for each other.

Well, don't leave out Pages.selected_page!

Dan Rathbun

@jim said:

@dan rathbun said:

@thomthom said:

hm... never thought of that inconsistency before...
model.materials.current vs model.active_layer

"current and "active" should aliases for each other.

Well, don't leave out Pages.selected_page!

I don't know about that one... Pages are special. Even though you "select" a Page, depending on transition time, Sketchup can be animating somewhere between the previous page and the selected one.
A FrameChangeObserver is needed to know when the animation is complete. Only at that point would I 'technically' say that a Page was the "active_page" or "current_page."

@Karen. You can get an array of the hidden layers for a Page:
mypage.layers
so the visible layers would be:
my_vis_layers = model.layers.to_a - mypage.layers

why they didn't name the method Page.hidden_layers, I don't know.

Dan Rathbun

@jim said:

@kwalkerman said:

..., should also be able to retain the active layer for each page.

I like this idea, particularly useful when adding text to Scenes. It seems quite possible using an Observer.

But when you add text to Scenes (Pages,) are you drawing to the model, or drawing to the View ??

If it's the View, then the active layer does not matter.

The active layer is a property of the model. A Scene (Page,) is a View mechanism, which does not "have" layers; it only 'remembers' which of the model's layers to hide or show. A layer also has "new page behaviour" which it can tell new Scenes (Pages,) how to 'remember' their visibilty.

I can see some problems for other scripts, if the active layer was automatically changed when a Scene changed. There would need to be some kind of toggle to turn the "auto" feature on and off.
In addition, their would need to be scoping. What if an Observer was to be triggered while this "auto layer" feature was on? Outside the current script (or scope,) the Observer may want to "see" or "use" another layer as the active one.

It also occurs to me, that we are supposed to always be drawing primitives on "Layer 0", but still some modelers want to draw on other layers (construction lines especially.)

Anyway.. we'd need to consider this carefully. It could be a disaster.

Dan Rathbun

@kwalkerman said:

Seconded on the Layers usability, also, it would be great to be able to do:

Layers.active_layer

That can already be done:
Sketchup.active_model.active_layer
.. as it's a property of the model (Sketchup::Model class.)

see API: Model.active_layer

@kwalkerman said:

Layers[layer] = active

Will not work because there is no .= method defined for the Sketchup::Layer class. (You'd just be calling Ruby's internal hardcoded refererence assignment operator, which could set the layer reference on the left of the operator, to any kind of Ruby object. A bad idea, if it doesn't immediately cause an exception.)
This why the .new constructor is "hidden" (or made private,) and we create layers thru the collection class' .add method.

Sketchup.active_model.active_layer=layers['mylayername']
.. again, a property of the model (Sketchup::Model class.)

see API: Model.active_layer=

You CAN get a SKP DOM object's parent by using the .parent method. The model is the layer collection's parent, in the SKP doucment heirarchy. Where layers is the model's Sketchup::Layers class instance:
this_layer = layers.parent.active_layer

But, since each model instance, has an instance of a Sketchup::Layers class object, you'd think it (the Layers collection,) should also know which one of it's elements was active.
A simple Ruby patch for the Layers class:


class Sketchup;;Layers
  unless method_defined?('active')
    def active
      self.parent.active_layer
    end # def active
  end
  unless method_defined?('current')
    alias_method('current','active')
  end
  unless method_defined?('active=')
    def active=(arg)
      if arg.class==String || arg.kind_of?Integer
        self.parent.active_layer=self[arg]
      elsif arg.class==Sketchup;;Layer
        self.parent.active_layer=arg
      else
        raise(TypeError,'Sketchup;;Layer, String, or Integer expected.')
      end
    end # def active=
  end
  unless method_defined?('current=')
    alias_method('current=','active=')
  end
end # class extension

%(#4000BF)[**EDIT:

added aliases* fixed method defintion tests**Note: The reason I do not call]Sketchup.active_model.active_layer (in the patch,) is to accomodate multi-model environment on the Mac, where the active model may not be the one a script is working on.

ADD: This can be extended to the Sketchup::Layerclass, so that a layer can return (boolean) whether it is the active layer or not.

class Sketchup;;Layer
  unless method_defined?('active?')
    def active?
      # .equal? returns true ONLY if receiver and arg have same object_id
      self.equal?( self.parent.parent.active_layer )
    end # def active?
  end
  unless method_defined?('current?')
    alias_method('current?','active?')
  end
  #
  unless public_methods(false).include?('eql?')
    # only override if it hasn't yet been redefined
    def eql?(arg)
      if arg.class==Sketchup;;Layer
        # we shall ignore the name attribute
        # use the == override to include name in test
        # use <=> to test only the names (match returns 0)
        same = true
        return (same = (self.page_behavior==arg.page_behavior)) if (not same)
        return (same = (self.visible?==arg.visible?)) if (not same)
        return same
      else
        raise(TypeError,'Sketchup;;Layer expected.')
      end
    end # override eql?
  end
  #
end # class extension

TommyK

I don't know if this thread is still checked by the Sketchup team, but I have one ruby request:

be able to set selection colour per entity, including bounding box color.

It would allow different kinds of entities to be shown as such.

Rich O Brien

That's a very old feature request.

I think it was back at v7 I remember seeing members ask for groups and components to be different colours.

I love it to happen. Sorely needed in such a visual program.

AdamB

Pretty, but whats the use case?

slbaumgartner

@pout said:

does anyone know if any of the remarks here will be taken into consideration in a new version?

The SketchUp development team are famous for marching to their own inscrutable set of priorities, so only they know for sure. But this topic was started by a member of the team, so it is at least as good a place as any for sketchUcation members to post suggestions.

thomthom

We're watching.

Since the Trimble acquisition a good number of have been addressed. That despite the fact that we've only had short dev cycles so far. Takes time to shift things around. But we're ramping up.

tt_su

I used the wrong - hat... So for the sake of making it right - with my Trimble hat: Yes we are watching.

TommyK

@adamb said:

Pretty, but whats the use case?

If people wanted to distinguish some component types from others, for example. Or maybe a plugin could show a graphical overview of all the objects in a model to reflect some attribute, or something?

I have a plugin I want to create that uses 'external components'. To distinguish these from normal components for the user, having a different highlight colour would really help. More info on my thread: http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323%26amp;t=59961

tt_su

@tommyk said:

@adamb said:

Pretty, but whats the use case?

If people wanted to distinguish some component types from others, for example. Or maybe a plugin could show a graphical overview of all the objects in a model to reflect some attribute, or something?

You could do this with a custom Ruby Tool with the current API though. That is unless you want to display the graphical overview all time time.

TommyK

@tt_su said:

@tommyk said:

@adamb said:

Pretty, but whats the use case?

If people wanted to distinguish some component types from others, for example. Or maybe a plugin could show a graphical overview of all the objects in a model to reflect some attribute, or something?

You could do this with a custom Ruby Tool with the current API though. That is unless you want to display the graphical overview all time time.

Yes, with a custom Ruby Tool. I would like to be able to change the highlight colour when the standard selection tool is used, and I believe there is no way to do this. Would you suggest that I script an alternative selection tool to mimic the native tool and add the additional functionality?

Perhaps the Sketchup team would find that the change to the API in this way would be too much of an intrusion to Sketchup's standard tools?