[Plugin] VisTools

TIG

If you have v1... zip downloaded from the direct link, then it doesn't contain the begin..rescue..end protection of the newer version that you can download manually from the site that is linked to
However, as even this could also jump out of the layer manipulation loop prematurely you can fix the tool's code thus...

Edit the Utilities.rb file in the SU_Utils subfolder, using Notepad or a similar plain text editor like Notepad++...
Use its 'Find and Replace' tool to change the two lines of code that say
l.visible = false
with this
l.visible = false **unless l == @model.active_layer**
This will stop you trying to make the active layer invisible which is disallowed...
Save it and restart Sketchup.
Now the two layer tools that try to switch layers 'off' should work without errors...

ishboo

Thanks Dan/TIG for replying! You guys rock.

dbehrens9000

Ishboo,

I use this utility alot with large projects and it no longer works with sketchup 8.0.15158. Could you please check why it does not load? Was there a change in the sdk that conflicts with your ruby scrpit?

Many thanks,

David

ishboo

@dbehrens9000 said:

Ishboo,

I use this utility alot with large projects and it no longer works with sketchup 8.0.15158. Could you please check why it does not load? Was there a change in the sdk that conflicts with your ruby scrpit?

Many thanks,

David

Hi David, I will look into and get back to you. I've been working on re-writing the application recently. Will update!

ishboo

I've finished a new release of the plugin. I've renamed it to VisTools so it's not so confusing and ambiguous.

Dan Rathbun

So you are settling on "IntrepidBear" as your toplevel namespace and filespace, then ?

utiler

Hi Dana, nice clean set of Utilities.. well done and thank you on behalf of everyone who has downloaded it!!

I had a think about the Isolate Entitles: its great to be able to isolate something particularly in a large model when you want to just work on that specifically however it would is just as important to be able to revert back to the entities that were visible. The same applies to the Hide Entities tool: mostly I would think that once you've finished with the hiding what you need you'd want the option to revert back....

Just a thought

Thank you again.

ishboo

@utiler said:

Hi Dana, nice clean set of Utilities.. well done and thank you on behalf of everyone who has downloaded it!!

I had a think about the Isolate Entitles: its great to be able to isolate something particularly in a large model when you want to just work on that specifically however it would is just as important to be able to revert back to the entities that were visible. The same applies to the Hide Entities tool: mostly I would think that once you've finished with the hiding what you need you'd want the option to revert back....

Just a thought

Thank you again.

Glad you like the tool!

If I understand correctly, you're asking for the ability to "unhide all" which is actually a button on the menu, so you should be able to do that already. I apologize if I'm misunderstanding what you're looking for.

utiler

Thanks for the reply, Dana.
I see you have an 'unhide all' botton in the toolset but what I was thinking was if I isolate selected entities I would like to then go back to what I had shown before I did so, not necessarily unhiding all.

atelierpaar

Hi there,
This seems to be a great tool and i would like to test it.
I try to figure out how to install "Vistools".
After downloading and unpacking the zipfile SU responses with the following Error message :

no such file to load-C/Programfiles (x86)/Google/GoogleSketchup8/Plugins/IntrepidBear/Vistools/VisTools.rb

After checking the zip -file, I found that the folder "IntrepidBear" misses the subfolder "Vistools" as well as "VisTools.rb "
Where ist the problem ?
thanks for your help
Uli

121029 VisTool Error.jpg

TIG

Usually it is you, "the user", who has managed to mess up a tool's download and installation... BUT in this case it is in no way your fault !

Something does indeed seem very awry !

Both the current download-able ZIP and RBZ versions on Dana's site contain an empty 'IntrepidBear' folder.
This ought to contain a 'Vistools' subfolder, which in turn ought to have VisTools.rb and probably some other files in there too

I'm sure Dana can fix this... If you get no response/fix after a reasonable time - then nag him - perhaps by PM...

ishboo

Sorry bout the broken download zip, I've fixed it.

Had made the zip on the command line and apparently my settings only zipped the folders, doh!

@utiler said:

Thanks for the reply, Dana.
I see you have an 'unhide all' botton in the toolset but what I was thinking was if I isolate selected entities I would like to then go back to what I had shown before I did so, not necessarily unhiding all.

Gotya. Like an "undo" button? I could look into adding this, just not sure when I'd have the time to get around to it!

Could be added with some sort of "history" buffer...

utiler

Thanks Dana, Look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Dan Rathbun

@simon le bon said:

Page 2:

@unknownuser said:

Utilities](http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f) (renamed VisTools)":2wizqn62]Version 2.x is coming .....
... We are then gone back to the first post of this present thread

Simon,
I suppose you are asking the question "What happened to FreezeTools v2.0 ?"

(1) FreezeTools must be thought of as an experimental code fork of the original, that was never released.

(2) Some organizational ideas for the code were used by Dana in the VisTools v1.1 (or v1.0.1 ?) release.

I am guessing that I had made the codebase for FreezeTools much too complex, in too many files. Again (guessing,) I think Dana did not have the time to test it, but needed to update the original, and decided to keep the update as simple as possible, still in one file, and include only the most important revisions, which were the name change to VisTools, and wrapping the code within his new IntrepidBear module namespace.

And probably, that was the correct decision. (I think I got carried away, and broke the code up into far too many files. Also, I likely introduced too many changes all at once. It is better to do changes in smaller increments, for debugging, and just in case that "fork" must be rolled back if it does not work out.)

But... since VisTools still needed an update to correct the multi-model situation on Mac, I said to myself,
"Why waste the work I and others did creating the language strings for FreezeTools?"

I still have all those language hash files, so I used the language strings, but in a slightly different way. (I no longer read the file as a hash literal into a string object, and then eval() it. I just let the interpreter use the language file via the load() method.)

SO .... this really is where we should be.

Version %(#000000)[1.2.0] is just a small incremental change that adds multi-model support, and loads localized language strings for the menus, toolbar, and tooltips.

Dan Rathbun

Issue #15 - Feedback needed:

Should commands that change entity states (hide, show, isolate, unfreeze & freeze,) touch entities that are already on hidden layers?

Currently there is no test for this, and commands just change the states without testing if the entity is on a layer that is not displayed.

Should we:

(1) avoid changing entity states when the entity is already hidden by virtue of it's layer ?

or

(2) provide a toggle (both menu item and toolbar button,) to ignore hidden layers ?

Dan Rathbun

Issue #13 - Feedback needed:

The hide_entities() and isolate_entities() commands can unexpectedly cause freezing.

If the entity is a group or component, and it is already locked, but not hidden, the above commands will cause freezing, by making them both hidden and locked. (Ie, there is no test to determine if the entity is a locked group or component.)

This may be unexpected by the user. A subsequent show_all command will not then make everything that was hidden become visible again.

Is this kind of freezing desired ?? ... or should these commands be changed to avoid causing freezing ?

Dan Rathbun

Issue #12 - Feedback needed.

Should the show_all() command be separated into a show_all_layers() and show_all_groups_and_components() command ??

Reasoning: The layers are not tested for freezing (because they cannot be locked,) but the groups and components are tested for freezing.

Dan Rathbun

Issue #11 - Feedback needed:

The command methods show_all() and unfreeze_all() only work upon the model level entities collection.

Should these instead iterate the definitions collection, and their instances collections, in order to act upon groups and components at ANY level, top or nested ??

ishboo

Dan, you're at it again

You're correct in guessing that I was daunted by your changes, I appreciate you're understanding and your time.

As you may have noticed, we've made the decision of closing down ExtendSketchUp and in turn I won't be doing any work on SketchUp plugins in the foreseeable future. Please feel free to use my code in any way you choose and I hope some of it becomes useful. Sorry to be disappearing but I don't use SketchUp much these days and don't feel I can adequately support any plugins at this time.

Cheers!

Dan Rathbun

UPDATE v1.3.3

Added Asian language support:

Chinese Simplified (zh-CN) language support by Xiao Long (guanjin)
Other Asian language support files (preliminary):
Chinese Traditional (zh-TW)
Japanese (ja)
Korean (ko)

THANK YOU to :

Xiao Long (guanjin)

Chinese Simplified (zh-CN) language file.

Pushed update into a forked GitHub online repository at:
https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools

Feedback via: https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools/issues