@unknownuser said:

I know this will stir a few but I cant help it. The stock market, like most religion these days has grown to have such legitimacy when really it is all smoke and mirrors.

@unknownuser said:

Short-selling involves borrowing a company's shares, selling them at a lower price, and pocketing the difference.

@unknownuser said:

"The emergency order temporarily banning short-selling of financial stocks will restore equilibrium to markets."

Actually, short selling is borrowing shares to sell immediately at the current higher price, then purchasing at a lower price to replace the borrowed shares. This involves as much (or more) risk as normal stock purchases, because if the price does not drop enough (or the price goes up) before the deadline to settle the short, the investor loses money.

One investor buys, expecting the price to go up so he can sell and make a profit. Another investor borrows and sells, expecting the price to go down so he can buy and return, and make a profit. In both cases, the goal is to sell at a higher price than the purchase price - one investor just buys before selling, the other after selling.

The root of the problem (in the US) comes down to leftist politicians who required banks to lend more money more often to higher-risk borrowers* (originates in the 1970s under Carter, expanded under Clinton in the 1990s).

More (unqualified) borrowers looking to buy houses fueled a housing construction boom.

The boom created a large demand for labor and materials, causing the cost (and valuation) of homes to rise higher than inflation (the bubble). About this time, conservative politicians started to see the end result on the horizon, and pushed to scale back the high-risk lending requirements and more closely regulate the high-risk instruments. The liberals (pocketing money from the pseudo-government companies pushing and insuring the high-risk instruments) said everything was fine, leave it alone (around 2005).

The housing boom eventually led to an oversupply of houses, though this was not so obvious quite yet, as people kept buying.

Expanded crude oil demand from China, India, and other developing nations (plus a growing number of less-efficient vehicles in the US) resulted in higher oil prices.

Rising fuel prices caused the price of everything to increase (due to shipping, raw materials costs, etc).

Rising interest rates caused borrowers with initially low variable-interest-rate loans to pay more each month to service their excessive debt.

The combination of inflated prices of fuel, goods, services, and debt repayment caused the overextended borrowers to default because they could not pay their monthly bills.

As the homes went into foreclosure, it became clear that there were more homes than people to buy them, thus there was no relief for the banks left holding the property - no way to liquidate the assets, since there was no one willing (or able) to buy them.

The banks then lost share price (and thus more liquidity) as it became obvious that the defaults were destroying shareholder dividend profits.

The losses exceeded the ability of some banks to absorb, causing those banks to fail.

However, the free market can take care of itself - Citibank is purchasing Wachovia, Chase is purchasing WaMu, and other deals will likely be in the works. They are doing this without $780 billion from the government.

The bottom line is interest rates will go up for a while, the economy will slow down for a while, the dust will settle, and life will go on. The free market works fine if the government will refrain from meddling with it in stupid attempts to create "legacy" for a few selfish, greedy politicians.

*** Higher-risk borrowers are of any income level where their debt-to-income ratio and/or creditworthiness are insufficient for a prudent lender to expect the borrower to be able to repay the loan without defaulting. Anyone of any income level could become overextended, not just the poor.**

alpro,

I checked out the files you sent. Were you intending to upload .skp files? You need to upload .png image files, which will be converted to .skp files on the return trip. I suspect now that if you had the ruby console open at the time, you'd see some error messages. I'll credit back your used credits so you can try the process again.

Sorry for the difficulty. I haven't previously heard about any Vista issues, though nothing would surprise me from Vista. One guess would be a problem with the WebDialog and some security settings in IE/Vista preventing talkback to SketchUp. I could process it myself and email you the completed component.

Thanks for the comments and encouragement. I've got some other eyes looking over the current iteration. After that, a couple of UI tweaks, and it should be ready.

So, there you have it - three solutions that avoid globals:

1. Sketchup.read_default and Sketchup.write_default (persistent across SketchUp sessions and models)
2. Attributes (persistent within a given model, between sessions)
3. Class variables (@@variable) (persistent only within a SketchUp session)

See this thread and this thread for discussions and examples.

Hope that helps,

@fletch said:

Hi Rick, this looks great! congrats!

Thanks!

@fletch said:

can a value of "0" be specified for the frame and have it therefore only build divider mullions/muntins? this way we would be able to use it to subdivide panels in a previously built curtainwall system?

Yes

@fletch said:

Will it have the option to be only one sided curtainwall? the additional polys will be very heavy in the scene if they are not needed. I would then have to keep the old windowizer as I prefer the lowest polys possible... for quicker SU response and quicker render times.

Yes, there will be a "front-only" option.

@fletch said:

Is there a way to make the grouping a component instead? one that cuts the opening? Say I picked 3 identical faces, and told it to make the window, and it were to make it, make it a component, and place the component in all three places for me... that would be powerful.

I think I could modify it to make a component - I'd have to do some research on instance placement (haven't used it for a while, so it's a bit rusty). The more difficult part is verifying that the faces are the same size/shape.

Okay, based on responses so far, I've made some determinations:

1. This will be user-configurable in a separate dialog, as I expect it won't change very often - if you never have a wall thicker than 16"/40cm, it will never change!

2. I will add the grouping option to the main dialog

3. "Undo" will undo all windows created in that instance.

Thanks for the input,

I'll throw some items out there for a consensus "vote":

1a. [EDITED] V4 will cut an opening in a "wall", and a "wall" is determined by the maximum distance between two faces. I can hard-code a reasonable distance value (currently 16"/~40cm maximum), or I can make it user-defined.

1b. If user-defined, do you want to see it in the main dialog every time you use Windowizer, or would you prefer it to be located in a separate configuration dialog?

2. V4 groups the resulting window assembly. I can add an option to group or not group this, if desired (the group would be exploded if non-grouping was selected).

3. When multiple faces are selected for a Windowizer operation, should "undo" work on just the last window assembly created, or on all of them? For clarification: currently in v4, 10 faces selected to be Windowized would result in 10 separate actions, thus 10 separate "undo" actions. This could be an option as well, subjecting it to question 1b. (main dialog or separate configuration dialog?)

EDIT: If you answer using this survey form, I can better track the responses.

Thanks!

Okay, here's a simple form for answering the questions (which will help me tabulate responses).

(Edson & Juju, thanks for your feedback - I've logged your responses already)

Also, webDialog callback actions don't get changed if you have persistent instances that call the dialog.

I know this does not answer the question about downloading the API, but it does address david's comment about updates. The Groups Documentation is updated by Todd and myself as we get time and feedback. AFAIK, it is now more accurate than the standard online API documents accessed via the Sketchup Help>Ruby Help link.

@unknownuser said:

A coworker had lent me a DVD on Frank Lloyd Wright's upstate New York architecture. The next day, I was at the office waiting for the elevator when another coworker walked up. He saw I was carrying a DVD and asked, "What's that?"
I replied, "It's a video: 'Frank Lloyd Wright's Buffalo'," to which my coworker responded, "I didn't know Wright had a buffalo."

Add your true funny story to the list

I just spoke with Todd, and he said that he and his family are fine, they have water, sewer, natural gas, and phone, but no power, and won't have power for several days. They are stocked with gasoline (petrol), water, and food, and restaurants are reopening around them, so they are doing okay.

Damage in their area is varied - they were on the western ("quiet") edge of the storm, but gusts caused significant damage in some areas. Boulevard medians had sections of landscaping that were untouched, then other sections that were demolished - very random.

He wanted me to convey his appreciation for your concern, and to let you know if anyone wants to help out, just head on over to Smustard and buy a script

Some browsers allow you to "make available when offline" when creating a bookmark or favorites, with options to cache linked pages.

I can make glass thickness an option (naturally, it's easier coding to have a single face, but since the coding is done for double face, adding a check for glass thickness is no problem).

EDIT: Easier than I thought - just specify a glass thickness of 0

Yes, glass has thickness. It should be evident in the detail image (click on it for a larger view) - there should be 3 shades of gray for the window frame as you look near/through the glass. I used a 1" thick glass setting (which in the real world would be two 1/4"-thick panes with the outside faces 1" apart, but is shown as a 1" thick piece of glass).

For rendering, do you need (for example) the 1/4"-thick glass at both faces?