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

[thomthom]

Being able to set Layer colour.

[thomthom]

• Being able to set Material name.
• Being able to delete materials.
• Being able to delete ComponentDefinitions

[TIG]

You can delete a definition's instances and then that individual definition from the component-browser thus:

model.start_operation("Delete Instances and Definition")
  definition.instances.each{|instance|instance.erase! if instance.valid?}
  # this 1st step is optional since all instance become nil anyway when the definition is emptied
  definition.entities.erase_entities(definition.entities.to_a)
model.commit_operation

Assumes you have set model and definition... It empties a definition and therefore it disappears off the browser listing. It must be inside an operation to work.

PS: You can delete a material BUT it's pretty convoluted. I'll publish a script for it shortly...

[thomthom]

I've not had 100% success with deleting definitions like that. I seemed to run into bugsplats. But I'll do new tests.

As for materials, I seen how V-Ray for Sketchup renames and deletes materials:
Deleting: iterate the whole model and remove the material - then apply unused materials to dummy groups and purge.

Rename: Create new material identical to old with new name - iterate and replace the old material with new. Then run the Delete method.

Ugly hacks which I'd rather not use. When model grows in size this just bogs down.

[TIG]

I've also made the equivalent layer.delete method here http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=166985#p166985 ...

[TIG]

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=166978#p166978 has material.delete method - I've streamlined it as much as possible ???

[TIG]

I've also made a material.name="new_name" method here http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=167219#p167219 ...

[TIG]

material.name="new_name" method now v1.1 - here http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=167219#p167219
Temp folder fixed for Mac users...

[narongwit12]

Be able to track the shadow area on each face. This could make the calculation of shading possible for energy simulation.

[BTM]

• to have the 5th (optional) argument for write_image as 'Transparent Background' if the file type is .png

[Dan Rathbun]

Sketchup::load

The Sketchup::load method does NOT expose the wrap argument, so we can specify wrap=true for rbs scripts.

For some unknown reason, the Google team defeated, or just didn't pass the 2nd argument (wrap) on to the aliased standard load, when they overrode it to handle rbs decrypting.

Please fix this!
_

[Pout]

Here is my list:

• Tig, although your solutions on material.name=, layer.delete, material.delete are good, it seems to me it would be much easier to just have them in the API. So i second the proposals of ThomThom

• Also i second the proposal of Morisdov concerning the add_framechange_observer not firing when creating movies or when working in layout. It should fire there to.

• make the entity.id consistent throughout different SU sessions (it changes now from time to time)

• it would be great if you could just select an entity based on a parameter (eg. entity.id) without looping all the entities in the model

• being able to access the font/size and other parameters of a text

• make a difference between the execution of scripts and the interface so it is possible to incorporate a 'stop script' button for example. Now the interface freezes as long as scripts are running. This makes users believe the execution of the script has halted and Sketchup has stopped working.

• ...more to come

[thomthom]

@pout said:

• Tig, although your solutions on material.name=, layer.delete, material.delete are good, it seems to me it would be much easier to just have them in the API.

And it would be faster.

@pout said:

• make the entity.id consistent throughout different SU sessions (it changes now from time to time)

Ditto!

@pout said:

• it would be great if you could just select an entity based on a parameter (eg. entity.id) without looping all the entities in the model

Ditto. If you have a script that requires observers attached to some objects one want these to be reattached when the model is loaded. Currently one has to iterate the whole model to find the entities, and one has to attach an attribute to be able to find the correct one - which means string comparisons which are really slow.
So a better way to directly reference entities across sessions would be a great addition.

@pout said:

• make a difference between the execution of scripts and the interface so it is possible to incorporate a 'stop script' button for example. Now the interface freezes as long as scripts are running. This makes users believe the execution of the script has halted and Sketchup has stopped working.

while true puts 'Ditto!' end

[Pout]

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

[Dan Rathbun]

@dan rathbun said:

Sketchup::load

The Sketchup::load method does NOT expose the wrap argument, so we can specify wrap=true for rbs scripts.

For some unknown reason, the Google team defeated, or just didn't pass the 2nd argument (wrap) on to the aliased standard load, when they overrode it to handle rbs decrypting.

Please fix this!_

Taking this a step further.

Since the rbs code blocks are eval'd, and Sketchup.load is an override (redefinition,) just pass the 2nd argument to Sketchup.load (if given,) on as the 2nd argument to the eval method.

That way developers can instantiate a binding() to their custom namespace(s), and have the code evaluated within that scope.

This can also give the GSUT the opportunity to protect some Google namespaces, within the argument validation block of the Sketchup.load method (ie: raise a custom "NotAllowedError" exception.)

[Dan Rathbun]

---

EDITED:Get||Set Layer Material & Color

---

Added missing "wish" statement to set Layer color in the example I gave (the last statement.)

---

[Dan Rathbun]

@thomthom said:

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.