Calling Whaat and Fredo!! new MAC issues (SOLVED)

jeff hammond

I'm on my laptop which is a ppc PowerBook running tiger w/ sketchup 5.0.262, 6.4.120, & 7.1.5803. (but I'm typing on a phone so bear with me )

I sync my plugin folder with my main mac (intel quad leopard, su 7.1) and they all work the same so I don't think the different OS or different versions of sketchup have anything to do with it.

I think you (chris and Tom) may be installing whaat's rubys improperly.
For BoolTools, you should place two items in your plugin folder.
-- a file named "booltools.rbs"
-- a folder named "BoolTools" (which contains 3 gif icons)

for profile builder, there are two items that go in the plugin folder.
-- a file named "pb_loader.rb"
-- a folder named "ProfileBuilder" (which contains 17 items of varying types)

(iirc) when you download one of these rubys and unzip them, you will have one folder named the same as the ruby. You have to open that folder to find the two items I mentioned then place those two items in the plugin folder.

jeff hammond

(agAin, I'm on a phone so....)

chris, I guess you are using the correct two profilebuilder files if you can get it to work in the user library.
Have you tried putting the profilebuilder files in the MacHD library AND removing the user library plugin folder altogether?

I dunno, I use three differnt macs with various OS and SU versions + a lot of these so-called trouble rubys and I never experience these problems. none of my computers have a SU plugin folder in the user directory (not even an empty folder-- which will still cause certain rubys to break). I can only base my opinion on my own user experience but seriously, ditch the user library plugin folder. I haven't come across a single ruby that needs to be placed there in order for it to work. The only time a ruby has to be in the user library plugin folder in order for it to work is when that folder is there to begin with. Even podium whose installer causes most of these problems doesn't need the user plugin folder in order to work. It will run perfectly from the standard MacHD location.

chrisjk

@unknownuser said:

(agAin, I'm on a phone so....)

chris, I guess you are using the correct two profilebuilder files if you can get it to work in the user library.
Have you tried putting the profilebuilder files in the MacHD library AND removing the user library plugin folder altogether?

...(not even an empty folder-- which will still cause certain rubys to break).

Jeff,
You are right - thank you. Even an empty plugins folder at the user level is enough to cause things to break. Moving everything over to the top level and deleting the user level folder has worked for me. Now all the tools and icons are there and functioning - great result! I quite thought I had tested this arrangement but I must have become confused by all the shuffling back and forth I have been doing.

Chris

Edson

in fairness i must say that jeff's suggestion has worked for me. i moved all the plugins i had at the user level to the regular plugins folder and removed the extra plugins folder. so far all the plugins are working, even podium which originally installs itself at the user level and booltools.

tfdesign

I've bookmarked this thread, and I'm going to try shifting everything around after I've finished this church visualisation project. But, it all looks very promising, so thanks to everyone for putting all this time in- especially Jeff!

Whaat

@chrisjk said:

Jeff,
I have tried installing Profile Builder as you suggest but to no avail - it is not to be seen. The manual makes explicit mention of this "The plugin may NOT work if installed to the following directory: Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Google Sketchup 6/SketchUp/Plugins" and although I am using SU7.1 (5803) rather than the version 6 mentioned by WHAAT,it makes no difference. The other plugins you mention will work in either place albeit missing some toolbars/icons or actual tools as in the case of Fredo's BZ tools.

The key word above is 'may'. The plugin will work if put in the standard HD plugin location (as long as there is no User/plugin folder). At the time I wrote the manual, the best workaround I could think of for this problem was to require all users to install Profile Builder to the Users subfolder.

Since then, I have found the solution to this problem which was been discussed at length here. The problem is related to the Sketchup.find_support_file("Plugins") method which will not return the HD subfolder if there exists a Users plugins subfolder (I never determined if it was related to the OS version or not...)

The solution I have found is to not use this method unless you also specify the desired subfolder. For example, if you say Sketchup.find_support_file("Plugins\/ProfileBuilder"), it will return the ProfileBuilder subfolder regardless of where it is installed (as long as it's in one of the $: locations)

I intend to update ProfileBuilder, SDS, and BoolTools with this fix but I have been dragging my heels a bit (sorry for this...)
So, to summarize, all my plugins should work if you install them in the standard HD plugins subfolder. However, if you run into a conflict with Podium, put the plugin in the Users plugins subfolder.

thomthom

@whaat said:

Since then, I have found the solution to this problem which was been discussed at length here. The problem is related to the Sketchup.find_support_file("Plugins") method which will not return the HD subfolder if there exists a Users plugins subfolder (I never determined if it was related to the OS version or not...)

Would be interesting to hear what Sketchup.find_support_file("Plugins") returns on Edison's 10.5 system. As on my 10.4 system it still returned the HD path after installing Podium.

Edson

Sketchup.find_support_file("Plugins")
/Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 7/SketchUp/Plugins

note: i have now all my plugins at the hd level.

thomthom

Ah. Then we need someone else with 10.5/10.6 and User plugins folder to test this.

cmeed

Can I say a huge Thank you to all those people who have helped this problem go away. I have no user level plugins folder now and everything seems to work. THANK YOU!

Jim

Holy carp, so Sketchup.find_support_file is not portable?

Does that mean I need to look at all the locations stored in $LOAD_PATH to be sure?

It does explain some blank toolbar image problems I have on the Mac.

thomthom

@jim said:

Holy carp, so Sketchup.find_support_file is not portable?

Does that mean I need to look at all the locations stored in $LOAD_PATH to be sure?

It does explain some blank toolbar image problems I have on the Mac.

If you use that to get the path of your own plugin - use File.dirname(__FILE__) instead. Or possilby File.dirname( File.realpath(__FILE__) ).

To find other plugins: yes I think you do.

Jim

Yes, but File.dirname(__FILE__) does not return a valid path when used in an encrypted file.

What is File.realpath?

thomthom

@jim said:

Yes, but File.dirname(FILE) does not return a valid path when used in an encrypted file.

Really? Never used encrypted files. What do you get in return then?

@jim said:

What is File.realpath?

Sorry, I mixed up with PHP. I meant File.expand_path http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/File.html#M002540
Reason you might want to use that is explained here: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=26040&st=0&sk=t&sd=a#p224558

Jim

The File:

print "*** file1.rb being loaded..."
print __FILE__
print File.dirname(__FILE__)
print File.dirname(File.expand_path(__FILE__))
print "*** Done."

Output when not scrambled:

*** file1.rb being loaded...
c;/Program Files/Google/Google Sketchup 7/Plugins/file1.rb
c;/Program Files/Google/Google Sketchup 7/Plugins
c;/Program Files/Google/Google Sketchup 7/Plugins
*** Done.

Output when scrambled: No idea why the podium path is in there?

*** file1.rb being loaded...
(eval)
.
c;/Program Files/Google/Google Sketchup 7/Plugins/SU_Podium_V2/plug_in/extensions
*** Done.

thomthom

eh? Now that's odd!

driven

@jim said:

     It does explain some blank toolbar image problems I have on the Mac.

sorry if I'm interupting

May not be related, I'm new to ruby scripting, but in trying to figure out why I sometimes have blank tool buttons, I have noticed a couple of things.

if I load a sphere_tool.rb from WebConsole I don't get the icon, but the ruby works

if I use a full 'load' call from WC to Ruby Console using a "Plugins" I get the large icon or "plugins" I get the small icon,

the other thing is they just add into the existing unless I restart in between.

In other cases, depending on the path in the .rb I'm calling, the blank button may or may not work from WC or ConsoleEditor. even if it works load though ruby Console or place in plugins folder. I'll keep tabs on the path in future, to see if it's a type of path causing the issue.

Spare non functional buttons (like I get with TIG's EE toolbar) only appear (on re-start) if left open and horizontal on close, but they go away when moved vertical down a left side

I don't know why or how I'm just poking around to try and learn something...

For what I've been playing around with this seems to be the most reliable path...

@str = Sketchup.get_resource_path("")

are there problems with me using that if I want to share what I make?

john

observations...

tbd

even if I am not anymore involved in Podium 2 development, I will take a look tomorrow when I get back on my Windows machine.

tfdesign

Thank you TBD. That's very decent of you.

tbd

regarding v2 "odd" behaviour when running scrambled scripts - as .rbs are executed dynamically the FILE returns "." (current directory) which is changed by Podium v2 (renderer.rb) via Dir.chdir.

that's why File.expand_path(FILE) returns .../SU_Podium_V2/plug_in/extensions path

you can try this code:


Dir.chdir "c;/"
puts "*** file1.rb being loaded..."
puts __FILE__
puts File.dirname(__FILE__)
puts File.dirname(File.expand_path(__FILE__))
puts "*** Done."

and you will get back:


*** file1.rb being loaded...
(eval)
.
c;/
*** Done.