Can Plugin Script Run while using other tools?

renderiza

Hi, I have an idea for a plugin that will report your actions per minutes while modeling so that you can analyze your performance.

Problem is that I want the plugin to still run its code even though you selected other tools.

Is this possible?

thomthom

"actions"? You mean like a ToolsObserver?

Provided you do as little as possible and don't modify the model you'd probably be fine.

renderiza

Problem is that if a load my APM plugin as a tool and then use the push pull or selection tool my plugin is deactivated.

By Actions I mean the plugin will report various thing like;

How much time have you spend idle without moving mouse.

How many clicks have you done...even categorize by what you clicked maybe.

How many time you used certain tools.

And So on...

This will probably start by counting your clicks but as time passes will add other actions as mentioned before.

This might be useful for monitoring how fast you work. The idea for this came from me playing Starcraft 2

Cheers!

Dan Rathbun

@unknownuser said:

Problem is that if a load my APM plugin as a tool and then use the push pull or selection tool my plugin is deactivated.

No, only your plugin's Tool instance is deactivated.
Your plugin's module can have observer class instances that watch whatever they are attached to.
See the the various descriptions of observers in the API.

@unknownuser said:

By Actions I mean the plugin will report various thing like;

How much time have you spend idle without moving mouse.
How many clicks have you done...even categorize by what you clicked maybe.

Not likely feasible, as only YOUR tools can log actual mouse clicks. Logging other people's tools and native tools are difficult.

However... IF a tool uses tool states, you might log when that happens. But state numbers are not consistent between all native tools. ANd do not work for Ruby tools.

@unknownuser said:

How many time you used certain tools.

That one would be easy using a ToolsObserver and logging when the active_tool changes.

BUT.. this only works for Native tools. The ToolsObserver just reports 50001 (ie the same integer,) for all Ruby tools, and "RubyTool" (the same string name,) for all Ruby tool names.

Are you aware that SketchUp writes an Undo log file while it runs?
Check your temporary directory.

Sometimes that is a good way to see what happening.

renderiza

Thank you both for help

I think I will not work on that plugin idea for the time being.

Cheers!