Name of component

[fred2420]

Hi i am struggling with what i am sure is something really easy but after hours of search i can't work out how to get the name of the active component as a string. I can set the name in Component attributes.

This is what I've tried
model = Sketchup.active_model
selection = model.selection.name
but its no where near

Cheers in advance

Fred

[TIG]

model = Sketchup.active_model
name = model.selection[0].name

BUT of course that assumes that the first object in the model's selection has a 'name'. A ComponentInstance or a Group might have a name [BUT it might also be ""], AND many other things like a Face or Edge never will have a name, so you'll then get an error...
If [as I suspect] you want the name of the component-definition of the first item [component-instance] in the current selection... AND you know it is definitely a ComponentInstance then you can use

name = model.selection[0].definition.name

which will return the unique string that is that component-definition's name.
To stop errors you really ought to test for the selection's suitability, 'type' thus...

model = Sketchup.active_model
sel=model.selection
name=nil
if sel and sel[0] and sel[0].is_a?(Sketchup.ComponentInstance)
  name=sel[0].definition.name
end

This way name is either 'nil' or a string, so the next step in your code could be

if name
  ### do something with 'name'
else
  UI.messagebox("Please select a Component Instance to find its Name !")
  return nil
end

[fred2420]

Nice one that has worked well cheers for the help

fred

[thomthom]

Note that there is component instance name and component name. Component instance name is the same as a group's name.