How to apply attributes through code? and how do they work?

Chris Fullmer

"show attributes" is not listed on my right click menu. Is that something you want to make? Or is it a plugin that you have installed?

Chris

thomthom

I believe he has the Attribute Manager plugin installed: http://code.google.com/p/sketchupattributemanager/

That adds such a context menu,

TIG

Google's Attribs.rb loads Attributes into the context-menu BUT it simply reports /manipulates the attributes associated with the selected object.

Please rephrase your question as it is unclear what you are trying to achieve.
You have a beam that has length/height/width as attributes.
It should be a component_instance/group ?
What do you want to do with it by right-clicking ?

meeta

I am sorry about that, With so many plugins installed, I lost track of what is really sketchup and what is the plugin. Let me rephrase:::

Say I create a box, with the help of a plugin and group it. I want to be able to see information about the group, by selecting 'Show attributes'. But I want the attributes to be made automatic. i.e. I want see, that it is a box, it has height h, width w, etc. How can I do this?

thomthom

You pretty much have it there in your first post. To add attributes to an entity you use .set_attribute.

As your plugin creates the group with the box, you attach the data you want to that group.

meeta

Yes it all goes well without any errors to debug. But When I right-click and click 'Show Attributes' there is nothing there but this in the dialog box:::

%(#8080FF)[**Add Category...

You can create/delete categories of Attributes and add/edit and delete individual attributes within a category.
To get started, click on the Add Category... link above.

Tip: You can create standard categories by clicking here.

Add an attribute Delete Category Cancel Accept**]

Is there another way of access the attributes I applied? And say I save this box, will the attributes be saved too?

thomthom

I sounds like you haven't added the attributes to the correct entity then.

I take it the first post included parts of the code you used - question is: where does the entities[0] variable come from?

meeta

I think the different entities are stored in an array format right? I copied the exact thing from the Google API.
[url]
http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/entity.html#set_attribute[/url]

thomthom

I really sound like you are attaching it to some random entity. Without seeing the rest of the code I can't tell you specifically what you're doing wrong - but I'm pretty sure that entities[0] does not refer to the group you want to add the attributes to.
I ask you again: where are you getting the entities variable from? What entities collection does it refer to?

When you create a group for your box. You're using the .add_group method somewhere. That method returns a reference to the group you created. This is the entity you need to attach the attribute data to.

meeta

here is the code i think its fine..


def draw_beam
		
		model = Sketchup.active_model
		entities = model.entities
		group = entities.add_group
		entities = group.entities
	
			pt = []
			pt[0] = [0, 0, 0]
			pt[1] = [@b, 0, 0]
			pt[2] = [@b, 0, @h]
			pt[3] = [0, 0, @h]
	   
		c_section = entities.add_face pt
		 
		@length = -@length if( c_section.normal.dot(Y_AXIS) < 0 )
		
		c_section.pushpull @length

	entity1 = entities[1]
	status = entity1.set_attribute "Dimensions", "Length", "#{@h} mm"
	status = entity1.set_attribute "Dimensions", "Width", "#{@b} mm"
	status = entity1.set_attribute "Dimensions", "Effective Length", "#{@d} mm"
    end

thomthom

"Well, there you're problem!"

You are assigning the attributes to a random entity inside your group.

group = entities.add_group
Here: you have your group assigned the the variable group. This is the value you want to attach your attributes to.

p.s.


entities = model.entities
group = entities.add_group

This will always create the group at the top level of the model. If the user opens a group or component when this method is run, the user might expect the group to be created in this context - but your code will not do that. model.active_entities always refer to the current context.

meeta

Ahh there is my mistake! I love finding mistakes..

I thought group is a method and not a variable!

thomthom

.add_group is a method. But it returns a variable - reference to the newly created group. http://code.google.com/intl/nb/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/entities.html#add_group

You created the variable group and assigned it to the return value of .add_group.

meeta

@beam = Sketchup.active_model.selection[0] bbox = @beam.bounds point1 = bbox.max point2 = bbox.min b = (point1[0] - point2[0]).abs.to_mm.to_i length = (point1[1] - point2[1]).abs.to_mm.to_i h = (point1[2] - point2[2]).abs.to_mm.to_i @beam.set_attribute "Beam Information", "1. Type of Concrete", "#{@cstrength}"

Ok one problem now, I have selected active_model as either ComponentInstance or Group. When its a group I can apply the attributes with no problem! But when its a component I am not able to add the information. Is there a way I can add all this information to it? and Is there a way to apply the same attributes to all the ComponentInstances in the active_model?

TIG

@meeta said:

@beam = Sketchup.active_model.selection[0] bbox = @beam.bounds point1 = bbox.max point2 = bbox.min b = (point1[0] - point2[0]).abs.to_mm.to_i length = (point1[1] - point2[1]).abs.to_mm.to_i h = (point1[2] - point2[2]).abs.to_mm.to_i @beam.set_attribute "Beam Information", "1. Type of Concrete", "#{@cstrength}"

Ok one problem now, I have selected active_model as either ComponentInstance or Group. When its a group I can apply the attributes with no problem! But when its a component I am not able to add the information. Is there a way I can add all this information to it? and Is there a way to apply the same attributes to all the ComponentInstances in the active_model?

active_model IS the model NEVER anything else like a ComponentInstance or a Group.
You must specify either the ComponentInstance or the Group, and then set_attributes for them.
If you want to set_attributes for them, you must first specify them clearly...
IF the first thing in a selection is a Group you can apply attributes to it.
IF the first thing in a selection is a ComponentInstance you can apply attributes to it.
[You can even get the instance.definition of it and set_attributes for that]
I see no problems... except that you a not selecting the right type of thing to set_attributes to ?

IF @beam = Sketchup.active_model.selection[0] IS the beam then it works... BUT is it the beam first thing in the selection ? You don't tell us enough to see what the @beam = Sketchup.active_model.selection[0] might be !

thomthom

apply the attibs to the definition.

meeta

what exactly is a component definition?

meeta

	if (Sketchup.active_model.selection[0].typename == "Group" or Sketchup.active_model.selection[0].typename == "ComponentDefinition")
			menu.add_separator
			menu.add_item("Beam Analyser") {
	                b = Beam.new
			b.bbox
			b.prompts
.
.
.
.
.
.

def bbox 
		@beam = Sketchup.active_model.selection[0]
		bbox = @beam.bounds
		point1 = bbox.max
		point2 = bbox.min
		b = (point1[0] - point2[0]).abs.to_mm.to_i
		length = (point1[1] - point2[1]).abs.to_mm.to_i
		h = (point1[2] - point2[2]).abs.to_mm.to_i	
end

does this make it more clear? If I choose a group, there is not problem. But if I choose a componentinstance, The attributes are applied without any problems. Unfortunately its not being applied to @beam.

thomthom

Would it be that your use of or instead of || makes this lines not evaluate correctly?
if (Sketchup.active_model.selection[0].typename == "Group" or Sketchup.active_model.selection[0].typename == "ComponentDefinition")

or has a lower precedence than ||
http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Ruby_Operator_Precedence

TIG

Things [each called an Entity] that are 'visible' in a model are typically geometry [lines, faces etc], and groups and components [what is commonly called a component is actually a 'component-instance']. These groups and instances contain geometry - they can also contain sub-groups and other instances. This is a simplified picture since there's also Images, Text, Dimensions etc etc but lets keep it simple !
Within the model's 'database' there are other things you can't see but that you can use - inside 'collections' called Materials, Layers, Styles and ComponentDefinitions. Each of these will have entries like Material, Layer, Style and ComponentDefinition.

So far so good ?

When you look at the Components in the Browser you are looking into the model's database and seeing the Component-definitions available for use.

When you select [highlight] something in a model you can get its 'class' [typename etc] so with the initial examples above you have Sketchup::Edge, Sketchup::Face, Sketchup::Group and Sketchup::ComponentInstance.

Let's assume you have somehow set a variable instance=ss[i] which is a Sketchup::ComponentInstance.
You can find its definition thus definition=instance.definition

Now you can find an instance.definition but conversely you can find a definition.instances [i.e. all of that definition's instances]
Any particular definition's instance doesn't contain anything at all - it is a marker for the definition itself, so instance.definition.entities gives you a list of entities inside the definition that that instance is using...
You can even 'swap' an instance's definition for another one: instance.definition=another_definition ...