Toolbar conversion

jojo9

Hi,

last night i converted some useful rubies without toolbar support, to use instead toolbar buttons.
Such buttons are always smarter as to dig through menus, even if your ruby depot isn't too big, especially when you have to reuse some commands over and over again. I say only: annoying…Not that i'm good in ruby coding, but i managed it smartly with common sense and some code snippets.
What i need are yet two simple commands, to add to my toolbar list :

-to open the -model info- window, preferable positioned in the middle of the screen
-to convert a selection in a group
-a hint how to add hard-coded rubies (ending with 'unpack') to a toolbar

TIG

1-to open the -model info- window, preferable positioned in the middle of the screen
{UI.show_model_info('')}

2-to convert a selection in a group
{Sketchup.active_model.active_entities.add_group(Sketchup.active_model.selection.to_a)if Sketchup.active_model.selection[0]}

3-a hint how to add hard-coded rubies (ending with 'unpack') to a toolbar
The obfuscation is because the author wants to prevent you from easily seeing his code.
As you realize, it is 'packed', and its 'unpack' function undoes that back into plain text, and then uses 'eval' on that, so as to turn the lines of text into the needed lines of code...
With a little though you could work out how to change it around - e.g. rather that passing the 'unpacked' text to 'eval' use 'puts' on it so you can see it in the Ruby Console... Then you can work out how it calls its menu items etc... simply replicate these in your own {...}

jojo9

Hi TIG
everything worked fine for me, for all of the three points. The model info window needed yet ('') to work.
UI.show_model_info ('')

a last question:
how do i to start Su with my toolbars already visible ?
i used to start my toolbars from a 'launcher ruby' (toolbar rubies are stored in a extra directory inside the Plugins folder) and added this lines:

tb4= UI;;Toolbar.new("Toolbar")
 tb4.show
 tb4.restore if tb4.get_last_state==TB_VISIBLE
#ect.

but… it isn't the best solution: because it creates a new Toolbar instance, even when no rubies are attached to it. This means i get an empty button without functionality.

TIG

Yes:
UI.show_model_info('') opens it on the last opened pane
UI.show_model_info('units') opens it on the units pane etc...
Sorry if I didn't explain that clearly...

You must make you toolbar reference 'enduring'...
Inside a module 'wrapper' try ' @toolbar=' or even set a constant ' TOOLBAR='...
this needs to be in an early loading .rb script, so prefix it with say '!'...
Then you can add entires to that reference to the toolbar from other loading scripts as SketchUp starts/loads...
Avoid 'global' variables unless they are exceptionally uniquely named - otherwise other scripts might clash... [ $jojo9_toolbar=]
You can't change a toolbar later on after it's been loaded.

driven

@jojo9 said:

a last question:
how do i to start Su with my toolbars already visible ?

you should fill in your profile so Tig and others know your on a mac...

also are you still on v8?

with v2013, on some mac's toolbars don't show on startup, unless they use .show, it's really annoying.

I have a plugin that lets you arrange your favourite toolbars, and it makes a list of them, after startup you can go to the help menu and click 'show my toolbars' and they all reappear at once.

I will add a button for it at some point but if you want a play let me know and I'll PM you a copy.

john

jojo9

Hi john
and thanks. I fear i cannot get your zip file anymore, because i can't see any more users attachments since Sketchucation was restyled/updated.

driven

I sent it in a PM as a 'code block', just copy paste, no zip...

john