I've since found another plugin that does a similar job - Eneroth 3D Rotate, from the Extension store.

So it's not so important to get this one working, but a pity it no longer works in later versions of SU.

I'm still curious as to what has broken it - some Ruby update? Something else in the environment like graphics driver or OS?

I do have two accounts, and posted by mistake using the one I share with Steve Baumgartner (slb_jwm). But I thought I had deleted it immediately I realised I'd used the wrong login, and reposted in my own account.

Sorry for the confusion.

@tig said:

If you run it with the Ruby Console open are there any error messages ?

It is 'open-source' so if you are up to it you can try editing the code to see what happens...

There are no messages at all in the Ruby console, either when it is working in 2017, nor when it crashes in 2020 and 2021.

A different plugin (PointTool.rb by Matt666) crashes in 2020 onwards, and Steve Baumgartner looked at it as I got no response from Matt. Steve said it blew up something in the graphics driver, but could get no further than that.

I'll try it in Windows 10/SU2020 and also on my Mac Book Pro, to see if a different OS or graphics card allow it to work.

I've published several plugins, but only with help from a more experienced Ruby programmer - several with Steve, and a couple with help from ThomThom.

I could have a look at the code but its unlikely I can spot anything. And I half-remember reading somewhere on the SketchUp forum that Ruby shouldn't be able to generate a bugsplat, but I'm not sure if that's right.

But thank you for such a prompt response.

In an ancient SU Forum post there was reference to both your plugin (which in 2017 does exactly what I want to do) and another which I'll try again to track down and see if that works in current versions.

I've looked at the thread about this plugin, and it seems development stopped in 2013, with a comment in the 'release notes' that it has been future proofed.

It's just the thing I was looking for, but it doesn't seem to work in either SU2020 or SU2021.

I get first a hang (Mac OS X Mojave 10.14.6) then a bug splat in both, after starting the plugin and making the first click. The black ball for the rotation point appears, but jumps of of its own accord to a point near the cursor, then freezes SU. I wait for a minute to see if it clears, but it doesn't.

@TIG, is it fixable? I'd REALLY like to be able to use it in later versions of SU.

I'll try it in 2018 or 19 to see if I can get it to work in one of those, or even an earlier version or two that I have installed.

I love this tool for its simplicity and convenience in use.

Unfortunately, it freezes the newly released SU 2020, and needs a Force Quit (on Mac Mojave) and I can't see why. It fails, and freezes SU 2020 when you try to add a point. No error message in Ruby console, either.

Any chance, Matt, you could update it to work in the latest version of SU? It worked fine in 2019.

I’ve used the original parametric.rbplugin from the Sketchup team in two of my plugins, SU Draw Parametric Shapes, and Polyhedra (both hosted on the SketchUcation Plugin Store).

It suffered from two drawbacks, which I’m pleased to say have now been fixed by Steve Baumgartner (@slbaumgartner).

1.Parameter order was not preserved when Editing an already-drawn component, as the parameter key/value pairs were stored in a hash, not an array, and would be returned in an arbitrary order.

2.If I installed both plugins, then I would get duplicate entries in the context menu when right-clicking to edit a drawn shape or polyhedron.

To preserve key/parameter order, each derived classin the calling function now needs to define a new function which passes an array of keys to parametric.rb in the required order. Here’s an example from the Shapes plugin, for a Helix shape:

  
  def keys
    ['start_radius','end_radius','start_height','end_height','start_angle','rotations','num_segments']
  end

To preserve backward compatibility, the revised parametric.rb implements a default keys method which returns nil, if not overridden by the derived class as in the example above.

I’ve updated both my plugins on SketchUcation to use the revised parametric.rb plugin, which will be installed along with the parent program when you update the plugin.

You need to restart SU after updating the plugin.

If you use this script in your own code, CHANGE THE MODULE NAME to use your own initials and calling program name instead of JWM::Shapes.

@einstein said:

Great thanks, johnwmcc, for this plugin!

Thanks for your appreciate comment.

@einstein said:

Did you consider designing a toolbar for it? I'm sure for many users it became one of the very basic tools in SU. Having it accessible on top of the screen would be nice

Not sure I know how to do that, but will consider it when I have time (probably not for at least weeks) - I have several other higher priority projects on the go at the moment, leaving me little time to update this one.

Useful plugin to name the materials taking a lot of space.

Would it be possible to list, as well, the component containing the material? On a Mac, particularly, there's no easy way to list or search to FIND the material just from its name.

Thanks, SD Mitch, for this very useful plugin.

Just installed this on iMac El Capitan. The input box dialogue is truncating the field names.

This is a known bug in InputBox on Mac, and can be fixed by adding extra spaces in the Prompts line of the call to inputBox.
prompts=["Step Width: ","Tread Depth: ","Riser Height: ","Num of Steps: ","Step Depth:","Rail Height:", "Rail Offset:","Height of Stairs:"]

The text above displays only one extra space added but in reality there are several - HTML is collapsing multiple spaces into one.

Result

I've incorporated this change into my own copy. Could it be fixed for any future plugin updates?

I have a model of a rotating plate with simple pivots and cranks. I've simplified it a bit, manually, into three different planes, and can if necessary use that.

But I wanted to flatten it completely, and tried this plugin for the first time, installed, along with Workplane.rb, today via the Sketchucation plugin.

Here's an image of the simple three-plane model, with pivot pins in 3D.

Here's the result of running Flatten to Plane:

The elements have all got misaligned.

Here's the simple model itself:
Simple Model

And here's what I tried originally while it was part of a more complex model:
Original model

Is this a bug in the plugin used in SU 2017?

When I first tried the plugin on the original component inside a more complex model, I got only an empty group returned.

Is there a workaround? Would it work if I use it in an earlier version of SU make? I have different ones back to SU8 M2.

Seems like a very useful plugin, and I for one would be happy to see it working again, if it does have problems in SU 2017. I'm using it on iMac 5K 27" with AMD Radeon R9 M395 2048 MB graphics.

[EDIT}
I did eventually get the original 3D model to flatten, but it too moved the pieces around relative to each other, including rotating the original round plate back to its original location, rotated back 165 degrees, and way off centre.

Steve and I have now updated a draft version of the program, with translations into all of the languages in which Sketchup ships for countries using a Latin alphabet.

Before publishing the multi-language version we would like help in reviewing the translations, made (with minor amendments) using Google Translate.

So far, we've done translations for these languages:
French
German
Spanish
Italian
Portuguese
Swedish

There are probably a few mistakes, big and small, in these translations. Neither I nor Steve is a good enough linguist to correct them. Please could a native-speaker of any of these languages review the appropriate page in the attached LibreOffice spreadsheet? It can be opened in LibreOffice or OpenOffice, or Excel.

Please don't change the existing translation, but insert any improved translation suggestions in the last column of one or more of the individual language sheets, identified by the two-letter code in the sheet name.

Please email the suggestions to Steve John <slb.jwm@gmail,com>

Many thanks in advance for anyone who can help.

If you would prefer a different format to ease your process of review, please email your request to us, using the email address above, or by PM to slb_jwm.

Draft translations for Angular Dimension 2

Of course, @TIG, you are quite right... and I use several of yours.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Thanks to all. That has probably given me enough to get started. And there is a more recent but still several years-old (copyright 2012) linetool.rb on the Extension Warehouse as part of the SU Examples download. I'll see how I get on using that as a model.

If I can, over coming weeks rather than days, I'll see if I can create a skeleton for more general use. But perhaps that isn't as simple or maybe even as useful as I first thought!

I already use a 'loader.rb' file as suggested above. What I was trying to ask was what the code would look like so that the extension isn't restricted to having its support folder and files in SU's Plugin folder. And I think you have given me something to try instead.

What would be a good example script or scripts to study before starting to program a new Tool extension?

I'd like it to be compatible with versions of SU at least back to 2014 (Ruby 2) and perhaps to v8.

And I'd like it to follow 'best current practice' (or at least 'good current practice').

I do know some of the basics, like how to set up an Extension loader. And to wrap my code in a uniquely named Module.

And I have a couple of published plugins in this site's Plugins store. But they were merely updated to cope with Ruby 2, and probably are no longer current best practice.

Years ago, I started from the then Example linetool.rb, but even the most recent one from the Extension Warehouse doesn't seem to include some of the newer features, such as pdf or svg icons for Su2016.

I've looked at Angular Dimension from Steve Baumgartner, which does include them, so perhaps I can use that as a starting point for that aspect.

But his example installs to the Plugins folder and looks for support files there. For development, at least, I want to be able to run it from an external folder, to share with different versions of SU for testing purposes. What would example code to do that look like?

Is there a 'skeleton' tool plugin example that would have all the basics in it, including the basic picking of input points, which isn't trivial to set up from scratch?

And something with a good example of the Tools 'draw' method for displaying temporary geometry during the use of the tool. I have struggled (and only partially succeeded) in getting a simple version of that to work.

Most of the supplied su_xxxx.rb plugin loaders have scrambled code in their support folder.

If there isn't such a skeleton (and I haven't been able to find one yet, though I've seen pieces of what such a thing might contain on this and the Sketchup Community forum), could one of the experienced SU team members or talented Ruby script writers suggest one, or point me to a few unscrambled Tool plugins they would recommend as good examples to follow?

The Ruby Learning Resources sticky post on this forum is still dated 2008, and even the latest topics in it seem to date back to 2011, so I haven't found them of much help in tackling some of the later developments, though the basics are still of course very relevant.

PS. Just looked again at the Learning Resources - there ARE later posts from earlier this year by Dan Rathbun, including Templates... but they are still empty.

I've just installed this plugin in SU 2016, on iMac 5K Retina running El Capitan (OS X v 10.11.3).

The dialogue box is incredibly small and hard to read on this high res-screen. Is there any way of making it bigger?

The overall height of your dialogue is only about 8mm, and the text less than 2mm high.

The screen shot (attached) seems to make it look a bit bigger, but in reality I need a magnifying glass to read it!

PS. Sorry again - I've only just seen earlier posts on this subject. Will see if the suggestions there help.

PPS. Checking the Retina box in the Default Parameters dialogue helps, but only enlarges the boxes and icons, not the text

Seems that there are general problems with very high res displays for SketchUp, not yet fully resolved, though there are partial workarounds.

Just come across this post years later, as I was having the same difficulty - viewport edge was jumping, and I couldn't see why.

Turning off Object Snap in the View menu in Layout fixed it for me - I could then make small smooth adjustments with the mouse.

I see that I had disabled the warning - not appreciating the implications. Found where to turn it back on (Sketchup/Preferences/General, on a Mac) and also checked Style and Fog option in the Scene Update settings for what to save with the scene. Back Edges showing is now saved as a new style, though I don't immediately get prompted for a name for the style. But I can rename it in the Styles window.

First time I've even thought I needed to use the Fog setting - somehow, I had not really registered the Style element on that line! Doh!

That's really helpful - I vaguely remember seeing the warning, but hadn't realised what it meant about being able to have different styles for different scenes.

I'll get that to work after your pointer has got me looking in the right direction.

Thank you.

Is it supposed to be possible to have Back Edges showing in one scene but not in others?

I'd like to have Back Edges showing in one scene only, but not in others, but can't see how to do it, or even if is possible.

If I turn Back Edges on in one scene, they appear in all scenes, even if I have tried to Update their settings separately.

Ah. It seems that the problem lay in the TextEdit app - when I found and installed Brackets instead, and made the same edit, it does what I expected.

Ah well, it takes a while for a decades-long Windows user to get used to a new iMac...!

John McC