@unknownuser said:

it'll never be able to make it a solid object with Sketchup's native tools..

That's not really true, any shape can be made solid using nothing more than the line drawing tool. The trick is to think of the surface divided up into triangles (or quadrilaterals where you can make four coplanar edges)...

...you can see here how I am adding a surface to the top of the uneven curve by simply drawing in triangles one at a time. Once they are all drawn in, you can use the eraser tool (with Ctrl held down) tool to smooth those lines into a continuous surface.

The many skinning and lofting plugins available do make this a lot quicker and simpler, but doing it by hand can sometimes give more control over the triangulation so that the "undulations" of the resulting surface are as you would like - and doing a few manual ones will also give you a feel for how the "skinning" plugins works for a better understanding of the variables in their setup dialogues.

If you keep subdividing, eventually there will be an infinite number of sub-divisions. But in order to traverse the line, the subdivisions cannot be of zero length otherwise there would only be a point. Infinite divisions * non-zero length = the hypoteneuse is infinite!

And as Douglas Adams pointed out in the Hitch Hiker's Guide... if there are a finite number of sentient beings occupying an infinite universe, then any answer is pointless as it is infinitely probable that your post was just a figment of my imagination!

@utiler said:

if horizontal is 0% and vertical is 100%

100% = 1:1, rise = length.
Vertical = #INF - Error, divide by zero! As nonsensical as writing a gradient of 1:0.

Worth doing a "purge" also before saving as a template, to remove unused stuff.
I got this wrong when I made my first template - all my first projects had +many MB of file size from the components I made to give the new styles a workout. Doh!
The template is really just a regular SU file, so you can include anything that you find useful; components, layers, styles etc. - even geometry in the workspace if you wanted, say, a grid of guidelines always present.

@lobster said:

Probably even less after todays announcements.

Had forgotten that he was so vocal about that whole shameful episode - his comments about the tragedy gave us a true taste of his attitude to the "man in the street".

@gaieus said:

No way; it's glued to the plane you drew it on

- Doh! I must be getting old, I was convinced it was just me making inappropriate glue settings while "sleep-drawing"! Shame there isn't e.g. a different colour selection highlight etc. to indicate glued items - or at least it could show up in the entity info dialogue.

Hi all,
Firstly the disclaimer! - object oriented programming is for me just, err, dis-orientating! I don't understand it, and won't pretend to have any insight into the technical issues.
Second - thanks, Jim. For sure, there may be arguments about the implementation of "quarantining", but the idea of a central reference for downloads that might cause problems is a good one.
Here's my two'pennorth worth as a user of SU plugins, and as a creator of plugins of a very different kind (VST music/audio DSP).

• I agree with Chris that problem plugins should not be removed as a matter of course. It might be detrimental to future developments - i.e. where a plugin is a good idea or does clever geometric stuff, but has been made by a novice who could benefit from some help, or is willing to let another developer collaborate on their project. Forum users (or anyone for that matter) should be assumed to be intelligent enough to assess the risks and make their own informed choices (even if we know that some are not!). However, I would make an exception for posts where there is a consensus that the intention is purely malicious - e.g. the above "delete all my files" example.
• Moving such plugins to "quarantine" and linking from the original post is IMHO a good solution - unlike a simple note/icon etc., having to go to another location for the download means that the warning cannot easily be missed. As a novice developer, I would not be offended by this - I would have no desire to impact on the usefulness of SU for other people, and highlighting the problems in this way makes them more visible to other developers interested in helping to realise the OP's ideas. Any developer who gets stroppy about having such serious bugs pointed out to them obviously has no care for their user-base, and I would regard an angry response as little more than flaming!
• SU is useful in its "vanilla" installation, but it really is the scope of customisation with (mostly free!) plugins that makes it so powerful. Maybe this should be emphasised more when folks initially join the forum - i.e. the initial registration e-mail could contain links to, e.g. Dave's plugin installation tutorial, this quarantine list etc. and an explicit warning that plugins may interfere with each other. OK, it won't help with the idiots who don't RTFM, but even as as someone with previous plugin experience in various bits of software, it took me a while to suss out that "infectious" plugins might be the issue when I had the inevitable SketchyPhysics problems - it was just not something that I had ever had come across with e.g. VST, photoshop etc. plugins and scripts; usually just deleting the "broken" thing always worked, rather than looking for something that IS working but has ill-effects on something benign.
• It's been pointed out already that folks download SU plugins from other sources, thus missing any warnings. How about a download somewhere here (maybe top of "quarantine" thread), some simple software that would scan the plugins folder and report back any .rb files associated with known dodgy plugins. No file deletion or anything nasty like that, just a crude "virus scanner" for the plugin folder that users could run (hopefully before posting thier bug report!)

And to all the Ruby guru's who display such patience with the "how on earth do they manage to dress themselves" brigade - respect, and much sympathy!.
I dread making my VST plugins public - they can be used (theoretically!) in any of several dozen different host programs (more than any amateur dev' could ever possibly afford to own), each of which will look in an utterly different location for the 'plugin' folder, be compatible with a different update of the VST specification, have a different memory for legacy standards, which appeal to teenage egotists with pretensions of being the "next big thing" in the music industry (i.e. nothing is EVER their fault)...... Fun,fun,fun!

@solo said:

what a character.

And being pushed by infuential corners of the UK media as the next Conservative Party leader, and possibly Prime-Minister. While he is undoubtedly amusing, and has an apparently affable persona, I don't really want to see my country led by our very own hybrid of Berlosconi, Putin and Romney. As London mayor, the guy already has an impressive record of dodgy back-room dealing which has been well documented by such as Private Eye - yet which mysteriously never appears in the mainstream media.
At the very least, the media moguls are promoting him as a warning to the current leadership that they will only get behind the party again at the next election if big business gets exactly what it wants at everyone else's expense.
Beware the clown!

I would just like to add - thankyou for asking!
I can't think of any other forum or website that I use where the developers have actually thought to seek the opinion of their users regarding their ad policy. And your policy works well IMHO - I have always found the ad's to be both relevant and discreet.

@tig said:

If you wanted to launch a native tool then use something like:
Sketchup.send_action("selectSelectionTool:") if Sketchup.active_model
which changes the default 'Line' tool to become 'Select'

Thanks TIG. I've always been mystified why they chose 'Line' as the default tool - 'Select' seems much more sensible to me; so now I have made my first ever .rb file (though I think it will be 1000 years before there's any chance I'll rival you, ThomThom, Fredo et al.!!).

When you see the picture of it with someone's hand wrapped around it, it looks like something else entirely! Made me quite jealous, I can tell you!

Back on topic...
RSI is a nasty problem, I too have been afflicted, though thankfully it has lessened with good old TLC. After two decades of computing and playing bass guitar and drums, and being a general round-shouldered slouch, I guess I was begging for it.

Now, it has to be said, it is more a shoulder and upper-arm thing for me, but I have found that using a thumb operated trackball has done wonders for my comfort.
I think it does offer some relief for the fingers too, as there is no need to grip the thing, apart from a gentle squeeze when operating the buttons. With a little practice, it can easily be operated on your lap or knees, and no wrist movement is needed - which relaxes the muscles of the entire arm and shoulder.
Although it is really designed for desk-top use, I actually find it better than the ones that are specifically designed to be hand-held - most of them are sold as "travel mice", and so tend to be rather small and finger-achingly fiddly.
Probably the only down-side is that the "thumb-ball" ones are not ambi-dextrous, but most trackballs that are don't seem to have a wheel, which results in bizarre button combinations being needed when scrolling etc.

Hope you find a solution that works for you - RSI is so often trivialised as office whingeing, but I know from experience just how debilitating it can be.
Beware folks, it can creep up on you very easily - take care of your yourselves, you will regret not doing so when you find yourself unable to get a beer to your lips!!

Ah that's sweet - shows what a soft-hearted guy you are that you would treat them so mercifully!

Welcome.

@sfto1 said:

I also hope to, at some point (maybe even soone) be as helpful to others as many of you have been to me.

He he, I have similar hopes - but whoa, these guys are just so damned good! I often wonder how they found the time to model and program scripts so skillfully, when they also seem to always be here ready with the answers to all our problems - I am very concerned that Google/Trimble may be involved with some sort clandestine CAD-monkey cloning program!

I wonder what the penalty is for making people grin when they're riding the tube?
Takes me back to years ago, working for the local benefits office "JobCentrePlus". We were mystified by punters coming in to look through the jobs on offer, and cracking up. Some guy had replaced some leaflets with a beautiful parody: "JobCentre DoublePlusGood", complete with tips on how to get a job as a member of the Royal Family, and diagrams for choreographing the infamous job centre scene from "The Full Monty" (though, sadly, no-one had the bottle to actual do it!)

You're welcome
'bout time I was contributing a little more round here - the generosity of other forum users taught me most of what I use every day in SU.

@aerilius said:

as an example, the Plugins page has around 891 and crai around 989

Now I can't stop myself seeing an image in my minds eye of SU open on a dozen 21" monitors - somewhere hidden amongst it is the remaining 1 sq.inch of viewport, the rest all containing the ultimate toolbar hell!

Hi Again,
Just a little follow up on that old bug report.
The IT guys finally got my new machine set up - and, oh no, the plugin was still having problems...
...until I went into the BIOS and increased MoBo GPU RAM to 500MB instead of the paltry 32MB allocated by default (had to use the MoBo, as the supposedly nice graphics card they put in couldn't even handle the SU view port!).
It now strikes me that this might have been the problem with the old PC - that also was using the MoBo graphics, and can't have have 500MB GPU space because the whole machine only had 1GB installed!
Here's a piccy of the first completed project...

...suffice to say, the boss was well pleased, especially as upcoming projects will require much more complex gear trains than this.

Many thanks for your excellent tool,
Trog

@goele said:

Untill now I already created an attribute LenZ. Users could enter the length in a textbow.

@goele said:

So I figure that it is either one or the other.

Yes, you are on the right track...

To use snapping from the Options it's best to use a drop-down list - if an attribute is using a formula, it cannot also be editable in the Component Options window. As soon as the user chooses a new value in the window, the literal value will replace the formula - leaving the snapping disabled.
You can create a custom "data entry" attribute to use in the Options window, and then reference that inside the formula. But, to do that, you would still need to disable the scale tool completely, as there is no way to make the formula switch automatically between using the custom attribute when editing the window, or using current("LenZ") when you use the scale tool - it would require a function something like "Most_Recently_Changed(attr1,attr2)", which SU does not have (though it would be nice).

So, as you say, it is a matter of choosing one method or the other. This will depend on the context of the component - for "snap to grid" type functions, using the scale tool is usually most natural, whereas for "real world" objects that come in standard sizes (e.g. screw threads, shoe sizes), the Options window may be more appropriate.

Hi There,
The maths to do this is relatively simple - divide by your "snap unit", round to an integer, then multiply up again by the snap unit.
But first, you need to know about the way that new values get updated from the user interface. For this, you need the special function "current()".
Current() receives a value from your mouse (or VCB) interaction, and then makes the DC equations update once, and only once. Without this, a reference such as...
*LenX = round(LenX/25)25
...doesn't know when to stop calculating, because every change to LenX makes it change again, and again - a circular reference. In reality, this kind of error is trapped, but still gives strange results.
The correct form is...
LenX = round(current("LenX")/25) * 25
Note that you must wrap the parameter name in quotes as shown here.

You could also use the functions ceiling() or floor(), if you want the snapping to always round up, or always round down - round() always goes to the closest one.
Also, watch out for small lengths that might snap to zero length - the IF function can test for this, e.g...
*LenX = if ( current("LenX")>25, round(current("LenX")/25)25, 25)
Here, if current("LenX") is over 25, you will get the result of the rounding functions, otherwise you get a fixed value of 25.

And there is yet another thing to be careful of. No matter what units you use for your drawing, current(), always return the length in inches! So if you are working in metric you may have to multiply the result by 2.54 before rounding.
**LenX = if ( current("LenX")>25, round(current("LenX")2.54/25)25, 25)

There's a full list of functions HERE.

Yes, big thanks to them all!
What always astounds me is not just the generosity in sharing the plugins, but also the endless patience to help folks get the best out of them (especially tirelessly helping the folks who don't RTFM!).

I wonder if they ever get any thanks from Google/Trimble? SU was my package of choice at work precisely because the plugins make it so customisable, without a distracting "too many options" core. That "added value" surely deserves recognition from the official developer, as it must surely be an attraction for many potential users.

And a big, BIG apology for not posting a "thankyou" on each forum thread
I get so carried away with each new toy that I do tend to forget my manners - my gran and grandad must be spinning in their graves!