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...