Hey sdmitch,
Thanks much for the reply. much appreciated.
This will give me a good start as after looking at the SU Ruby API
docs left me fairly confused.
Similar to what pcmoor has stated, I now also need to find examples of menus etc.
Hey, very nice web page BTW 
Cheers,
Phil.
@sdmitch said:
Here's a start
mod = Sketchup.active_model
> ent = mod.active_entities
> sel = mod.selection
> vue = mod.active_view
> cmp_names = mod.definitions.map{|cd|cd.name}
> ctf = UI.inputbox(["Find;"],[cmp_names[0]],[cmp_names.join("|")],"Find Component Instances")
> if ctf
> mod.definitions[ctf[0]].instances.each{|ci|
> vue.zoom ci;
> break if UI.messagebox("Keep Searching?",MB_YESNO) == 7
> }
> end
>