A kickass UI using WebDialogs and DHTML Suite.

CPhillips

Update, I hooked up the UI to actually send updates to Sketchup any time a value changes. It was pretty easy but I am very glad I waited until I had the layout finished. Maintaining all the names and events is tedious when you are doing a lot of copy/paste of elements.

Unfortunately I think I went a bit overboard with the UI. It works fine, but from a user perspective it looks too cluttered and complicated. I am going to break it up and simplify it.

If anyone wants advice on how to get one of these running ask here.

Chris

tomasz

Chris,
I am interested. Give us a guidance, please.
Thanks in advance.
Tomasz

Whaat

Did you do the layout by hand-editing the HTML files or did you have layout software to drag and drop, cut and paste, edit colors, etc.?

Also, did you find any useful online resources for learning HTML and javascript or did you just try and figure it all out on your own?

Thanks for sharing this...

CPhillips

@unknownuser said:

Chris,
I am interested. Give us a guidance, please.
Thanks in advance.
Tomasz

I meant that if you wanted to build a dhtml suite dialog I would give you advice. Do you have a UI in mind?

Chris

CPhillips

@whaat said:

Did you do the layout by hand-editing the HTML files or did you have layout software to drag and drop, cut and paste, edit colors, etc.?

Also, did you find any useful online resources for learning HTML and javascript or did you just try and figure it all out on your own?

Thanks for sharing this...

I did it by hand. I looked and looked for a good layout editor and came up with nothing that was suitable.

Finally I bit the bullet and started doing the html code by hand. It wasnt nearly as bad as I expected. And I now kinda understand why none of the html layout tools are any good. Its more like writing code than a layout. BTW I use SCite as a html aware text editor).

The dialogs\simple.html example shows pretty much just the basics.

Chris

tomasz

@cphillips said:

I meant that if you wanted to build a dhtml suite dialog I would give you advice.
Do you have a UI in mind?

I meant if you could show us how you have connected html and Ruby. How you pass results back to Ruby.

Tomasz

CPhillips

@unknownuser said:

I meant if you could show us how you have connected html and Ruby. How you pass results back to Ruby.
Tomasz

Ah. Well you don't need dhtml suite for that.

Here is the ruby code that launches a very simple html dialog:


def showVerySimple()
    #create
    dlg = UI;;WebDialog.new("VerySimple", true,"verysimple", 300, 300, 100, 50, true)
    fn= File.dirname(__FILE__)+'/verysimple.html'
    dlg.set_file fn
    dlg.show {} #show it
    
    #create a callback for anytime a value changes in the dialog.
    dlg.add_action_callback("ValueChanged") {|d,p|
            puts p  
            }
end

The "add_action_callback" code at the end allows the dialog to communicate with sketchup. The "puts p" will print out the name and value of a control that changed.

Here is the HTML:


<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<HTML>
	<HEAD>
    <title>Webdialog UI </title>
	</HEAD>
	<body> 
        <div>
            <font color="blue">Checkboxes</font><br>
            <input type="checkbox" name="check-one" onClick="tellSketchup(this.name,this.checked)">One</input>
            <input type="checkbox" name="check-two" onClick="tellSketchup(this.name,this.checked)">Two<br></input>
            <input type="checkbox" name="check-three" onClick="tellSketchup(this.name,this.checked)">Three</input>
            
            <br>
            <font color="blue">Radio</font><br>
            <INPUT type=radio name="radio" value="radio-a" onClick="tellSketchup(this.value,this.checked)">Aye
            <INPUT type=radio name="radio" value="radio-b" onClick="tellSketchup(this.value,this.checked)">Bee
            <INPUT type=radio name="radio" value="radio-c" onClick="tellSketchup(this.value,this.checked)">See<br>
        </div>
   		<script type="text/javascript">
           function tellSketchup(name,value)
           {
                    //this non-intuitive command will call the sketchup callback "ValueChanged"
                    //with the name and value of the control that changed
               window.location='skp;ValueChanged@'+name +"="+ value;
           }
       </script>
    </body>
</HTML>

The HTML creates three checkboxes and three radio buttons. Anytime a user clicks on a control (ie. changes it) the "onClick" code is called. In this case it calls a javascript function called "tellSketchup". That function simply passes the info to sketchup in the form of a string like "check-one=true".

Thats it!
Chris

http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/sas/Ruby/VerySimpleDialog.zip

Jim

It comes down to passing Strings from the javascript to the ruby callback by setting the window.location and using the skp: prefix.


// this is javascript
window.location = "skp;somecallback"; // no paramters
window.location = "skp;somecallback@" + someString;


# this is ruby
dialog.add_action_callback("somecallback") do |d, a|
  # d is the dialog
  # a is the string passed after the @ in the javascript
  puts "somecallback called;#{a.inspect}"
end

herodes

Can someone repost the VerySimpleDialog.zip file that was on this thread?

I'd like to have a look...

Gaieus

Fixed. Thanks for notifying.

fredo6

Chris,

That's a very neat job and a damned good idea to enhance interactivity for some plugins requiring options and being context sensitive for actions (The Sketchup tool bar is actually very limited to interact efficiently and the button state management of Sketchup is simply buggy).

I guess this works for Mac too.

As soon as I can, I'll give it a try to regroup some commands of my plugins (Bezier, JPP, OOS, etc...) as it will be easier to show the options.

Fredo

PS: your dialog box is very esthetic. I like very much the design. And if you allow me, I will take some inspiration of it when I try one.

CPhillips

Thanks Fredo6. Feel free to copy any part of it.

@unknownuser said:

Chris,

That's a very neat job and a damned good idea to enhance interactivity for some plugins requiring options and being context sensitive for actions (The Sketchup tool bar is actually very limited to interact efficiently and the button state management of Sketchup is simply buggy).

I guess this works for Mac too.

As soon as I can, I'll give it a try to regroup some commands of my plugins (Bezier, JPP, OOS, etc...) as it will be easier to show the options.

Fredo

PS: your dialog box is very esthetic. I like very much the design. And if you allow me, I will take some inspiration of it when I try one.