@jperdman said:

My sys admin isn't very Senior college teacher friendly in that the cluster disk images are only made just before the beginning of the semester.

Hi John! Yes, we have the same lab setup. I'll have to make sure I include the plugin during summer imaging, too.

Regarding modifying the shortcut: By adding a "template" file to the target you are loading that file. Unfortunately SU just opens it, so you have to save it under a different name. Also, when you set the "start in" box to a folder with support files, then some programs will use the support files in that folder instead or in addition of the default ones. Just checked it and it doesn't seem to work with SU. This brings me to:

Dear Google, here's my wishlist:

• Allow for new template file extension like "skt" that loads a file as a template.
• Create startup switches for (additional) plugin folder "/p", (additional) component folder "/c", template "/t" and setting overrides "/s".

(This is pretty much AutoCAD functionality, but it is really useful for a lab setup like ours)

The portable version looks intriguing. Thanks for the tip. I'll try it out later.

If your admin lets you, get them to install my plugin loader. That way students can load plugins on demand from their USB drive as they need.

One more idea:

You can get them to make a template with all their settings and customizations and save it to the USB drive. Then copy the SketchUp desktop shortcut from the lab computer to the USB drive, too.

Right-click on the icon and modify the properties to reflect the following (as appropriate, USB:\ is the USB drive):

Target: "C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 7\SketchUp.exe" "USB:\SketchUp\my_template.skp"

It might also help to add the USB drive folder to the "Start in:" box.

AutoCAD is a bit easier here. Its startup switches make this much easier. See http://www.alexschreyer.net/cad/where-are-my-autocad-settings/

Cheers,
Alex

Thanks for finding this one. Works perfectly and is immensely intuitive!

@jean-franco said:

The message box ask me to install progressbar.rb. But it already exists in my plugin folder.

This is a case where my loader might not work. Some (especially the more complex) plugins have dependencies that are "hardwired". It might help to have the progressbar.rb script in both locations. Dito for other standard scripts.

Hi Didier, didn't mean to put pressure on you...

Cheers, Alex

Thanks for the comments. I actually didn't know about the script_loader plugin. But you're right - the underlying load function is very simple, nothing fancy here. I like calling it "Plugin loader" though because the menu is the Plugin menu and I wanted to make it easily understandable even for the novice user.

@Pilou: I didn't include Smustard because the Sketchucation index seems to index their plugins and I wanted to keep the menu as concise as possible.

Two questions for everyone:

• Is there a way to turn on the navigation buttons in the web dialog? Apparently these are off in Windows by default.
• Does this work on the mac? I haven't tested it yet.

11/5/2010: I just updated this to version 1.2!

I finally got around to finishing this plugin. Everything should be working fine - let me know if you run into any problems.

This little tool came out of a need for having plugins available in a “locked down” computer lab setting (see http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=16029). It also provides an easy way to browse some of the web plugin repositories and then to load any plugin into SketchUp - from any location. Because I had a recurring need for keeping some developer references handy, I decided to include several reference web links as well. The image below shows the menu:

This is not a perfect "plugin management" solution. I'll leave that up to Google (or you!). It works pretty well for my needs, though. Try it out. Here's the download link:
http://www.alexschreyer.net/projects/plugin-loader-for-sketchup/

Thanks to Jim for helping me with some code! Let me know if I should add some more web links to the menu.

Cheers,
Alex

edit by remus: new version available here: http://www.alexschreyer.net/projects/plugin-loader-for-sketchup/ read the notes carefully.

That looks amazing! How does it work? Where can I get it?

I am fully in support of a Ruby-manager, too. And a code repository with update checking and one-click updating etc. I am using wordpress a lot these days and they have a nice system for their plugins.

On another thread I started to think about something that may help to some degree - a plugin loader:
http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=16029

With a plugin loader, we could load only the most needed (and most stable plugins) and then on-demand load the ones we need for a certain task.

Cheers,
Alex

Thanks, Jim! That's when Ruby is starting to turn cryptic on me...
Seems somewhat straight-forward, though. All we need now is the directory selection dialog.

I wanted to preset the file selection dialog to the plugin folder, seems like I can do that with $:[0]. Sweet!

Cheers,
Alex

This is turning more into a Ruby topic...

I tried the plugin loader with a few plugins and as Jim assumed some load and some don't. I don't know too much about Ruby, but one that puzzled me because it didn't work was the oniondome.rb. It requires only the 'parametric.rb' and 'bezier.rb' scripts, which in turn require only 'sketchup.rb'. All are in the same folder (/plugins/inactive/).

Are there any SU Ruby functions that assume a file to be in the Plugins folder although no absolute path is given in a plugin?

Cheers,
Alex

Thanks, Jim. I was thinking about a (dirty) way: Let user select file in folder and then parse the directory path. Apparently that needs some conversion of backslashes into forward ones inbetween to get the Ruby functions to do it but it may work. Another option is a UI library, of course.

Cheers,
Alex

Thanks for your great suggestions. I like both solutions. The require_all one will be a good solution for the computer lab application that I have in mind.

I figured it might be a good idea to wrap that behavior into a plugin. So here's my first attempt (plugin_loader.rb):

require 'sketchup.rb'

def load_plugin_file
  filename = UI.openpanel "Select a SketchUp Plugin File (With RB Extension)", "", ""
  load filename
end

def load_plugin_folder
  # How can we select a folder easily with Ruby???
  # require_all foldername
end

filename = "plugin_loader.rb"

if !file_loaded?(filename)

  # get the SketchUp plugins menu
  plugins_menu = UI.menu("Plugins")
  my_menu = plugins_menu.add_item("Load plugin... (file)") { load_plugin_file }
  my_menu = plugins_menu.add_item("Load plugins... (folder)") { load_plugin_folder }
  
  # Let Ruby know we have loaded this file
  file_loaded(filename)

end

Does anyone know a good solution to get a directory path using a selection box?

Cheers,
Alex

Does anyone know if SketchUp has startup switches (like AutoCAD, for example)? I am thinking of something like:

sketchup.exe /p "d:/plugins"

AutoCAD does this nicely. For example, additional support files can be loaded at startup with a shortcut that contains the /s switch. This makes it easier to use the software in a "locked-down" computer lab where you have your own customized extension files on a USB stick.

FYI - Ralph Grabowski at WorldCAD Access is sounding a cautious alarm on SketchUp.

Read here:
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2008/12/will-sketchup-survive-googles-downturn.html

Finally its' here!!! Just downloaded it and posted a short list of new features:
http://www.alexschreyer.net/cad/sketchup-7-is-here/

There's likely more but I haven't found a "new features" page yet.

Cheers, Alex

Hi Daniel,
Looks great. It should look even more amazing (and increase rendering time immensely) when you apply a translucent ice material. Looks like this is for the Quebec City Carnival, is that the case?

Thanks all for the comments. Some replies:

I needed this functionality because I got my students to design and make mobiles as a fun example of small "structures". It might be useful for designing cross sections for structural analysis or for finding load resultant locations, too.

I'll check where I got the formulas from. It was some structural reference book. I actually re-used some old Pascal code here.

I bet there's a generalized 3d variant of this calculation approach. Haven't looked into it yet. I would think, though, that vertice ordering would be a major issue there.

I ran into a problem a while ago where I needed area centroids of irregular planar shapes. Since I couldn't find an appropriate SketchUp plugin, I used Rhino that time. The attached plugin adds this functionality to SketchUp.

Contrary to some plugins that I found, which use the centroid of the bounding box (and then add a construction point there), this one calculates the actual centroid accurately for any polygon (hence any shape in SketchUp). It also provides the area (more for reference since SketchUp spits this out anyways) and the area moments Ix, Iy, Ixy.

Please give this a try and let me know if you run into any usability, calculation or proper plugin programming issues.

Some limitations: Shapes must be drawn on the ground (x-y plane) and calculation accuracy is limited by polygon accuracy.

Plugin webpage (available soon): http://www.alexschreyer.net/projects/centroid-and-area-properties-plugin-for-sketchup/

GetCentroid.rb

It's quite odd that Google hasn't pushed this more but maybe they are watching for a while to see how it works... Or they are just implementing this "routinely" now for all their online services... Or - and that's where my earlier comment came from - they are going to make this a major part of SU7 (direct synchronizing and versioning - and maybe other "social" features) and are waiting for an announcement there... Or maybe there's just an innovation-fatigue with Google where people just don't notice all the new features anymore...