Accessing System Preferences from Ruby

[joshb]

I'm trying to access the default file paths in Ruby, that are set from the Files section of the Windows, Preferences dialog. I can't seem to find any way in the Ruby API to do this.

I poked around the registry and noticed that these settings are stored in the HKCU\Software\Google\Sketchup6\FileLocations key. I though I'd be able to use the Sketchup.read_defaults methods to access these settings but the method seems to have trouble reading strings from the registry. If I call

Sketchup.read_default "File Locations", "Models", "default"

I get back nil. However, if I change one of the parameters to something that doesn't exist, such as

Sketchup.read_default "File Locations X", "Models", "default"

I get back "default". So the method is finding the entry in the registry, but I suppose it just doesn't know how to return REG_SZ values. This is probably fixed in a newer version but unfortunately I'm stuck with 6 for a while.

Any suggestions on how to access the file path preference?

Thanks,
Josh

[TIG]

This PC only code returns the keys and values for any valid Registry entry.
See the notes at the end for usage

require 'sketchup.rb'
module TIG ### for PC use only !
def self.getregentries(key="")
  key.tr!("/","\\")
  cfile=File.join(ENV["TEMP"], "regentries.cmd")
  tfile=File.join(ENV["TEMP"], "regentries.tmp")
  f=File.open(cfile, "w")
   f.puts("reg query \""+key+"\" /f \"*\" /s > \""+tfile+"\"")
  f.close
  UI.openURL("file;///"+cfile)
  sleep(0.1) until File.exist?(tfile)
  sleep(0.1)
  lines=IO.readlines(tfile)
  hents={}
  lines.each{|line|
    line.chomp!
	next if line.empty? or line=~/#{key}/ or line=~/^End/
	ent=line.split("    ")
	hents[ent[1]]=ent[3]
  }
  File.delete(tfile)if File.exist?(tfile)
  File.delete(cfile)if File.exist?(cfile)
  return hents
end
end
### Example;-
### ents=TIG.getregentries "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Google\\SketchUp8\\File Locations"
### Find the ents entry 'by name' thus;
### ents["Components"] >>> 'C;\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8\Components\'
### Returns 'nil' if there is no key.
###

Read the notes at the end on how to get a key/value.
Copy/paste code into a file called say TIG-getregentries.rb in the Plugins folder, to use type the example in the Ruby Console OR inside a script...