You are now editing multiple components

ashscott

I forget to click "make unique" about 50 times a week!

Tell me about it. I was certain someone must have written a script to do this but I had a browse around and it appeared they hadn't.

Frankly, I think the lack of a warning like this plugin and the errors it causes for users (who are focusing on what they are drawing on not how many components they are messing with) is a limitation to the efficiency of sketchup as many users don't use components to their full potential because they have been burned in the past.

When I concentrate really hard I can draw parts and assemblies with a lot more speed using components but the concentration required to keep track of what other parts I am modifying is a drain.

I hope this enables people to get right back into using components to their full potential.

Dan Rathbun

@ashscott said:

This sketchyphysics model modifies the watermark text in realtime ...

Warkmarks are images, and currently have no exposure in the API.
They are a no go, at this time.

Besides that example would require users to install SketchyPhysics, which has some "naughty poor programming" issues at this time. (But should be fixed soon.)

ashscott

Has anyone else with a bit more ruby experience than me had a chance to tinker with the sketchyphysics model I linked to (above) and worked out how it modifies the watermark in real time depending on user's inputs? Is it something to do with the sketchyphysics runtime (requires sketchyphysics running?) or could it be applied to our current problem?

Dan Rathbun

Perhaps it directly manipulates an external watermark image file ?

ashscott

I don't know how this works but as far as I can tell this is the line that controls it:

logLine "mode;" + @@hokou.to_s

Have poked around the documentation but I'm not really sure what logLine does

Dan Rathbun

it looks like a method call

ashscott

Any use for the problem we have here?

Dan Rathbun

I do not have the SketchyPhysics code downloaded, so I cannot look at it.

Trogluddite

@dan rathbun said:

Perhaps it directly manipulates an external watermark image file ?

Interesting - just stumbled over this thread as I was wanting to do something similar - a constant tally of faces in the corner, as I'm working on some models where minimal poly count is critical.
I did a text search through the SketchyPhysics .rb files to see how they did it, and found an 'addWatermarkText' method.
Seems it's not a watermark at all, but a 'face-me' text component, loaded from a support folder, and placed using 'pickray' to find it a consistent location on screen.
Presumably this means that it has its position transformed whenever the view is orbited etc., though I didn't have the patience to go looking through all of the files for the method calls.

ashscott

Awesome sleuthing!

Dan Rathbun

@trogluddite said:

I did a text search through the SketchyPhysics .rb files to see how they did it, and found an 'addWatermarkText' method.

Seems it's not a watermark at all, but a 'face-me' text component, ...

This is how I am currently doing it (in (WIP) Edit Mode Warning Flag v1.1.0,) using:
model.add_note(@note,@x,@y)
This above method creates a special viewport-based "face camera" Sketchup::Text object.

@trogluddite said:

..., and placed using 'pickray' to find it a consistent location on screen.
Presumably this means that it has its position transformed whenever the view is orbited etc., ...

The view-based Text object does this automatically, but the x and y are percentages, so it can handle viewport resizing better.

But the main drawback is that using a Drawingelement always modifies any model file opened.

I CAN make a transparent window or WebDialog on PC. John (Driven) already has done work on this for the Mac.

ashscott

Do we have any more options with the advent of SU 2013?

What can I do to help move this forward as I'm struggling with some of the documentation again - is there a way I can use pickray to position the note in the current version more accurately?

Dan, what is involved in getting the transparent window or WebDialog working?

ashscott

I'm trying to modify Dan's script to make this a little more lightweight and to see if I can make a UI.messagebox appear whenever I'm editing multiple components as I seem to not notice the current notification in its current form.

First thing, can't we chop out anything referring to groups as groups won't modify other groups that are derived from them? Like this:

if inst.is_a?(Sketchup;;Group)
            parent = inst.entities.parent
            num = parent.count_instances
            text = "Editing #{num} group instances"
            puts(text) if debug

That would also save the editpath query thingamajig from having a second "if" function in it (I think)

Also, in order to get the UI.messagebox I'm trying to add in something like this:

      parent = inst.definition
            num = parent.count_instances
            puts {UI.messagebox("Editing #{num} component instances")} if debug

But that keeps breaking the script....

I feel like this should be really simple and it probably is - can someone point out how I'm misusing UI.messagebox?

Dan Rathbun

messageboxes are modal (and it will suck to have to manually click a button each time you are editing multiple components.

Dan Rathbun

@ashscott said:

Do we have any more options with the advent of SU 2013?

NO.. they did not update the API much at all.

Dan Rathbun

@ashscott said:

Dan, what is involved in getting the transparent window or WebDialog working?

I would do the WebDialog first (as the transparent window would be only MSWIN.)

BUT... per new policy... I am no longer doing ANY free development.

Sorry guys.. but I got sick and NEED income.

ashscott

Hi all,

We got this plugin up and running in a really functional way.

EditFlag

It has improved my workflow in SU immensely as I can now work with multiple component instances (using components to their full potential) without the fear of editing a bunch of components accidentally.

Would love your feedback and any bug reports on this.

Big shoutout to Dan Rathburn - He coded this and I highly recommend his work.

Dan Rathbun

Ash please start a proper thread for this plugin in the "Plugins" forum, and we can then add a link from this "beta" topic to IT.

ashscott

The final product and discussion is now available over here: http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=54082