[Plugin] VisTools v1.3.4

[Dan Rathbun]

Description

SketchUp VisTools provides a few useful tools to help you in working with layers and entities within your models. (VisTools was created by Dana Woodman to mimic the AutoCAD style of visibility control.)

The tools are as follows:

• Hide Selected Layers -- Hide all layers that are within your selection.
• Isolate Selected Layers -- Show only layers that are within your selection.
• Hide Selected Entities -- Hide all entities (lines/faces/groups/components) that that are within your selection.
• Isolate Selected Entities -- Show all entities (lines/faces/groups/components) that are within your selection.
• Freeze Selected Groups and Components -- Lock and hide all selected groups and components. In effect, this "freezes" the group/component so you can work on other things without affecting it.
• Unfreeze All -- Unlock and show all groups and components that are frozen (e.g. if they are both hidden and locked).
• Show All -- Show all layers and entities within your model. This will NOT unfreeze groups or components.

The plugin will create a Toolbar with buttons for each tool. It will also create a right-click context menu called "VisTools" which will let you right click on a selection to perform the above actions. Finally, the plugin will add a menu item to the "Plugins" menu.

You can map these tools to short cut keys to make it even faster to use.
Just go to "Window > Preferences" and go to Shortcuts.

I mapped mine in the following ways:

"Isolate Selected Layers" mapped to Shift I.
"Hide Selected Layers" mapped to Shift H.
"Isolate Selected Entities" mapped to I.
"Hide Selected Entities" mapped to H.
"Freeze Selected Groups and Components" mapped to Shift F.
"Unfreeze All" mapped to Alt/Option A.
"Show All Layers and Entities" mapped to Shift A.

You can of course map them to any keys you want!

---

Seasons Greetings !

Dana Woodman is very busy lately, and does not have time to maintain his well regarded 2 plugins.
He released these under the MIT License, and welcomes community support in extending & fixing them, etc.

To that end... here is the next version of VisTools (formerly known as Freeze Utils, FreezeTools or similar.)
These updates have been pushed into a forked GitHub online repository at:
[url]http:https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools[/url]

---

( post-release of v1.3.4 )

Fixes:

• Korean (ko) language support file by Joseph Kim ([url=http:http://sketchucation.com/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=150905]josephkim626[/url])
  
  * The description in the Preferences panel will not be updated until next release.
  
  Attachment is ONLY the VisTools_ko.rb file, wrapped in an RBZ archive, so it can be used as an updater for any version 1.3.4 & below.
  
  
  IntrepidBear_VisTools_Korean_Update.rbz

You need to restart SketchUp to load the new strings.

---

v1.3.4

IMPORTANT!
Delete file: "Plugins/load_Vistools.rb"
Delete folder: "Plugins/IntrepidBear"
THEN.. install the new RBZ:

IntrepidBear_VisTools_v1.3.4.rbz

Fixes:

• Added Swedish language support file (still may not load.)
• Added encoding "magic comment" first line to all script files.
• Fixed nil error in "VisTools.rb", line 208, in isolate_layers(),
  (when not in editing context, active_path() returns nil.)
• Fixed nil error in "VisTools.rb", line 309, in isolate_entities(),
  (when not in editing context, active_path() returns nil.)
• Flattened plugin directory to "IntrepidBear_VisTools"
• Renamed "load_Vistools.rb" -> "IntrepidBear_VisTools.rb"

---

v1.3.3


Added:

• Chinese Simplified (zh-CN) language support by Xiao Long ([url=http:http://sketchucation.com/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=45456]guanjin[/url])
• Other Asian language support files (preliminary):
  • Chinese Traditional (zh-TW)
  • Japanese (ja)
  • Korean (ko)

---

v1.3.2

Fixes:

• Correct @@lang assignment in language file rescue block.
  (This bug prevented the fallback English language hash from being defined for asian languages.)

---

v1.3.1

Fixes:

• Updated the isolate_layers() rescue clause like the others.
  (This change was missed in the last revision.)
• Define an array to set the ordinal position of commands, and use it to populate the menus and toolbar.
  (Ensures the commands are always in the same order.)

---

v1.3.0

Fixes:

• Only trap StandardError subclasses in rescue clauses.
  Re-raise the exceptions (for a debugger or development tool.)
• Isolate selected entities
  Do not isolate wrapping ancestors, if within an editing context.
• Isolate selected layers
  Do not isolate ancestor's layers, if within an editing context.

---

v1.2.1

Fixes:

• Revised language file load error notice.
• Prevent unnecessary undo operations when nothing to be done.
• Fixed: Undo operation names were not localized.
• Fixed: unfreeze_all() and show_all() method descriptions.

Added:

• Added Dutch (nl) & Czech (cs) language support.
• Gray-out commands that rely upon selection, when it is empty.
• Add UI disable during undo operations for SketchUp versions 7+.

---

v1.2.0

Fixes:

• Removed the use of instance references that were being set ONCE when SketchUp started.
  This prevented using the tools on any model opened later in the session, and on Mac would not work with multiple open models.
• The plugin was defined in a class used in a singleton manner (which 99% of time means it should be a module instead.) The VisTools class was changed to a module, using a nested anonymous singleton proxy class instance.
• many local vars changed to module vars
• changed some "Google" references to "Trimble"
• removed references to ExtendSketchup.com, as it is now shutdown (bummer)

Not Added:

I did NOT add any new functionality (nor change the way the tools currently work.)

Added:

• "Debug Mode" toggle added to the menu
• Multi-Language support.
  • The plugin will look for "VisTools_XX.rb" files, in it's directory, where XX matches the first 2 characters of the language SketchUp is running in.
  • These rubies initialize @@menutext and @@tooltips hashes that contain string values.
  • If a file does not exist for the user's language, English is used.
  • These hash rubies must be wrapped in the plugin's namespaces, AND be saved as UTF-8 without BOM encoding.
    There is a sample "VisTools_en.rb" file that can be used as a template.
    .

---

* The debug messages for this version are still in English

Appreciate testing to be sure the langauge hash rubies load correctly, and their strings are correct.
Currently there are files for cs, de, es, fr, it, nl, pl, pt and ru
v1.3.3: Added files for ja, ko, zh-CN & zh-TW
Please give feedback on language support, and using with multiple models on Mac.

THANK YOU to :

• Xiao Long ([url=http:http://sketchucation.com/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=45456]guanjin[/url])
  Chinese Simplified (zh-CN) language file.

THANK YOU to :

• [url=http:http://sketchucation.com/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=12502]jolran[/url]
  Swedish (sv) language file.
  This file has been included with versions 1.3.4+
  
  VisTools_sv.rb
  Note: I do not think SketchUp will run in a Swedish mode, currently. Perhaps an update in the future to force using a non-standard language?

The descriptions for the Extensions dialog are all literals in the "IntrepidBear_VisTools.rb" file (which also must be UTF-8 without BOM encoded.)

Again, If you wish to send changes (or attach them to this thread,) be sure to save the file as "UTF-8 without BOM".

Cheers.

[simon le bon]

Hi Dan,

Thank you to maintain these VISTools
IntrepidBear_VisTools_1_2_0.rbz downloaded thanks.

Here are some informations about these tools . (after I have searched by myself this morning)

author site:
https://github.com/danawoodman/sketchup ... r/VisTools
https://github.com/danawoodman/sketchup-vistools

SketchUcation:
[Plugin] VisTools
by ishboo » Fri Apr 08, 2011 12:03 am
viewtopic.php?f=323&t=36465

Hey Everyone,

I've written a collection of SketchUp visibility utility functions that allow you to:

• Hide selected entities (faces, edges, groups, components).
• Hide selected layers.
• Isolate (aka Show Only) selected entities.
• Isolate selected layers.
• Freeze selected groups and components (hide & lock).
• Unhide all entities (does not unfreeze frozen items).
• Unfreeze all groups/components (does not unhide all items).

These tools work in concert to allow you to mimic an AutoCAD like workflow when working with items in your model.

I've desired the ability to "Freeze" items in a model so I can work on other items without affecting them. This can be accomplished by using the Freeze tool to lock and hide items which allows you to modify and hide/show other entities without affecting the frozen items.

Download:
You can download the newest version of the plugin here: http://extendsketchup.com/plugins/dana/vistools/

The code for the tool is released under an MIT license and hosted at GitHub:
https://github.com/danawoodman/sketchup-vistools

Report any bugs or issues here:
https://github.com/danawoodman/sketchup-vistools/issues

Update (9/27/12): I've changed the name of the plugin from the generic "Utilities" to "VisTools" to avoid confusion with other plugins. I've also updated the location of the Github repo and fixed a few bugs. It is now hosted on ExtendSketchUp.com as well.

Please let me know what you think!

Page 2:
viewtopic.php?f=323&t=36465&start=15#p350198

---

Version 2.x is coming .....

---

Language translators, and proofreaders needed.

I did the German (de) and Spanish (es) files, and they need proofing. (It's been 35 years since I took Spanish in high school, and I only 'dabble' in German when doing genealogy research.)

The files need to be Unix line endings (EOL) and UTF-8 encoded. They are named "basic_utf8_XX.hash" and "debug_utf8_XX.hash", where XX is replaced by the lowercase language code. (ie: 'en', 'es', 'pl', 'fr', etc...)

The plugin will "auto" find these files, or the user can choose a specific lang from those that are present. (In 'en' mode, the hash files are not actually loaded... as the Ruby code knows what the English strings are.)

<----<<<< PM me if you'd like to do a certain Language translation, or proofread/correct the 'de' or 'es' files.

If a debug hash file is not available for a certain language (but the UI strings in a basic hash file are present,) then the UI will be in that local language, and console output will be in English (if the user has turned it ON.)
So... the priority is on the 'basic' hash files, in order to show the UI elements in the local language.

replaceable parameters
%s will be replaced by a number, like: 34
'%s' will be replaced by an entity flag, like: '#<Sketchup::Face:0x624452c>'

words.txt

NOTE! The above file, and the hash file in the next post, will be used with ver 2.x,... they do NOT work with ver 1.0 (if that's why y'all are downloading, but not volunteering to translate.)
Translator links: Google Translate : MicroSoft Translator

....

Last post p4
viewtopic.php?f=323&t=36465&start=45#p446921

[Plugin - Beta] VisTools v1.2.0 ready for testing

We are then gone back to the first post of this present thread

++ Simon

[Dan Rathbun]

Page 2:

Version 2.x is coming .....

... We are then gone back to the first post of this present thread

Simon,
I suppose you are asking the question "What happened to FreezeTools v2.0 ?"

(1) FreezeTools must be thought of as an experimental code fork of the original, that was never released.

(2) Some organizational ideas for the code were used by Dana in the VisTools v1.1 (or v1.0.1 ? ) release.

I am guessing that I had made the codebase for FreezeTools much too complex, in too many files. Again (guessing,) I think Dana did not have the time to test it, but needed to update the original, and decided to keep the update as simple as possible, still in one file, and include only the most important revisions, which were the name change to VisTools, and wrapping the code within his new IntrepidBear module namespace.

And probably, that was the correct decision. (I think I got carried away, and broke the code up into far too many files. Also, I likely introduced too many changes all at once. It is better to do changes in smaller increments, for debugging, and just in case that "fork" must be rolled back if it does not work out.)

But... since VisTools still needed an update to correct the multi-model situation on Mac, I said to myself,
"Why waste the work I and others did creating the language strings for FreezeTools?"

I still have all those language hash files, so I used the language strings, but in a slightly different way. (I no longer read the file as a hash literal into a string object, and then eval() it. I just let the interpreter use the language file via the load() method.)

SO .... this really is where we should be.

Version 1.2.0 is just a small incremental change that adds multi-model support, and loads localized language strings for the menus, toolbar, and tooltips.

[Dan Rathbun]

Pushed v1.2.0 into a forked GitHub online repository at:
https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools

[Dan Rathbun]

UPDATE: v1.2.1

(see first post)

[simon le bon]

Hi Dan,

Simon,
I suppose you are asking the question "What happened to FreezeTools v2.0 ?"

I am too new with these tools to ask such a question: but it is an interesting reply

This have made me realize that I hadn't enough noticed that we where in the Developers' Forum
Alas, I regret but coding matter is not my cup of thea

Anyway, Thank you in advance for the future developments..

(I have some problems and things to understand with Vistools layers management but I go to [Plugin] VisToolsthread to discuss )

*simon

[jolran]

"Look Mom! No code outside the author's namespaces."

Looks like very tidy code. And well documented. Will study this.

[Dan Rathbun]

"Look Mom! No code outside the author's namespaces."

Yup.. you're the first to notice my little quip.

But it is true. There is usually never a need to write normal plugin code, that evals outside your author namespace.

Looks like very tidy code. And well documented. Will study this.

Yes it should serve well as good, simple plugin example.

[Dan Rathbun]

UPDATE v1.3.0 (see first post)

Pushed update into a forked GitHub online repository at:
https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools



Fedback via: https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools/issues

[simon le bon]

Hi Dan,

You surf on the lip of the wave.
After a little while of use; once we have begun to integrate its functionalities in our workflow, this tool appears as natural as a basic one !

v1.3.0 Downloaded,
Thank you ++

simon

[Dan Rathbun]

@simon: Are the français menu text and tooltips working correctly for you?

[simon le bon]

@simon: Are the français menu text and tooltips working correctly for you?

Everything looks perfect in the two areas

A suggestion:
May be a red icon or light to signal something is hidden or frozen as a reminder would be useful. I think that with a complex model stratified on numbered layers, things can be loosen into the hidden world easily.

+++
simon

[Dan Rathbun]

@simon: Are the français menu text and tooltips working correctly for you?

Everything looks perfect in the two areas

Thank you for the feedback Simon!

[Dan Rathbun]

Issue #19: Toolbar button ordinal positions

In the old pre v1.2.x versions, the plugin commands were added to the VisTools toolbar in a hard-coded manner.

In my versions (v1.2.0 to v1.3.0,) I first loaded all the commands into a Hash, and then later iterate this @@command hash adding the commands to both the toolbar and menu.

The problem is that in Ruby v1.8.x, the order of keys returned when using an each iterator, is not ALWAYS the same order in which they were added to the hash.

Anyone notice the position of toolbar buttons changing from one session to the next ??

I may need to modify the code to be sure the buttons are always in the correct order.
ADD: Issue filed for milestone 1.3.1, and fix has been done.

[Dan Rathbun]

UPDATE v1.3.1

Pushed update into a forked GitHub online repository at:
https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools



Feedback via: https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools/issues

[guanjin]

UPDATE v1.3.1

Pushed update into a forked GitHub online repository at:
https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools



Feedback via: https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools/issues

Aviso para cargar error

未命名.jpg

[Dan Rathbun]

@guanjin:

The plugin should have just used English ...

... because I did NOT supply language files for zh-CN (Chinese Traditional), zh-TW (Chinese Taiwanese), ja (Japanese) or ko (Korean.)

I do not know how to create UTF-8 encoded language files for these languages.
(I think they may use UTF-16 encoded characters.)

Questions:

Are you running SketchUp in chinese ? zh-CN or zh-TW ??

At the Ruby Console, what is the result of:

Sketchup.get_locale

and:

Sketchup.get_locale()[0,2]

[Anton_S]

Hey Dan, the script and organization is amazingly profesional. Indeed, I need to upergrade my scripting skills now...

[Dan Rathbun]

Thank you Anton

[Anton_S]

I examined the Vis Tools.rb and find it strictly licened. What bugs me is the whole licence thing:

1. How do I get it? I found a link here, though I'm still not sure.
2. What kind of licence should I get? MIT?
3. Is it required to pay for the licence?

---

Sorry if my post is a bit of topic though

[Dan Rathbun]

I examined the Vis Tools.rb and find it strictly licened.

The MIT License is very NON-Strict.

Really there are only 2 requirements: that the copyright notices of the previous authors must stay in the code documentation (you add your own name if you make changes and distribute an edition of your own;) and the original License text (and it's requirements, along with it's 2 restrictions, AND ALL it's privileges,) must be passed on to any future users, or authors.

Basically.. the "MIT License" is a liberal, socialistic, community property type of license, that is meant to encourage "open source" projects that anyone can use, and improve. Since many people may put their valuable time into the product and do not want some entity "stealing" their work and turning it into a commercial product,... the license has the requirements that the contributor copyright notices and all privileges to use or modify the software, must be passed on.

How do I get it?

The license text IS distributed with the plugin in "LICENCE.txt", ...
and I also pasted it into the documentation headers of the "Plugins/load_VisTools.rb" extension loader and the "Plugins/IntrepidBear/VisTools/VisTools.rb" main script file.

IF you installed the rbz archive, then you have the license files.

I found a link here, though I'm still not sure.

That website has nothing to do with THIS VisTools SketchUp plugin nor it's license.
That website is a form guide that helps you decide what license to use with YOUR OWN projects, that have never before been subject to any "End-User License Agreement" (EULA), "Terms of Service" (TOS) or "Terms of Use".)

What kind of licence should I get? MIT?

The license attached to the plugin IS the MIT license.

The terms of the MIT license (as distributed with the plugin,) along with the Warranty Disclaimer / Limitations on Liabilities, apply to your use of the software as it is now; and grant you privileges (subject to those 2 restrictions,) to modify or extend the software, and distribute your own edition.

Is it required to pay for the licence?

No ... but I would not mind donations to help pay for my time, or new features.

I could have charged a fee for the updates (under the terms of the MIT license,) but chose not to, because I really did not add any new features. I just cleaned up the code mostly, and fixed a few things. The language support files were done by volunteers back when I forked off the edition that was temporarily called "FreezeTools".

I do not use the VisTools plugin much myself, because I really do not feel it Freezes things the way they are frozen in AutoCAD. But I suppose it is better than nothing.

Unless I get feedback from users who really like to use the plugin, and likely get some donations to do more work on it,... I probably will not do much more to it, other than fix any glaring bugs, that are easily fixed.

[Anton_S]

Thank Dan, that explains it well.

[Dan Rathbun]

@guanjin:

The plugin should have just used English ...

OK I found the error.

It was me:

VisTools.rb: line 95
@@lang == 'en' # just use English

should be making an assignment:
@@lang = 'en' # just use English

'tupid booboo!

I'll make changes and push an update.

[Dan Rathbun]

UPDATE v1.3.2

Pushed update into a forked GitHub online repository at:
https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools



Feedback via: https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools/issues

[Dan Rathbun]

UPDATE v1.3.3

Added Asian language support:

• Chinese Simplified (zh-CN) language support by Xiao Long (guanjin)
• Other Asian language support files (preliminary):
  • Chinese Traditional (zh-TW)
  • Japanese (ja)
  • Korean (ko)

THANK YOU to :

• Xiao Long (guanjin)
  Chinese Simplified (zh-CN) language file.

Pushed update into a forked GitHub online repository at:
https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools



Feedback via: https://github.com/DanRathbun/sketchup-vistools/issues

[hygicell]

I have installed vistools with ThomThom's install plugin,
but I get these startup errors:

ScreenHunter_23 Jan. 14 07.53.jpg

Error Loading File load_VisTools.rb
C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/load_VisTools.rb:4: syntax error, unexpected '<'
<!DOCTYPE html>
^
C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/load_VisTools.rb:5: syntax error, unexpected '<'
<html>
^
C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/load_VisTools.rb:7: syntax error, unexpected '<'
<meta charset='utf-8'>
^
C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/load_VisTools.rb:8: syntax error, unexpected '<'
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
^
C:/Program Files (x86)/Google/Google SketchUp 8/Plugins/load_VisTools.rb:8: syntax error, unexpected tIDENTIFIER, expecting $end
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">

[Dan Rathbun]

These errors are not caused by VisTools.

VisTools has NO html files, and therefor NO <!DOCTYPE> nor <META> tags,... so the errors are caused by ThomThom's installer in some way. (But may be meaningless.)

Restart SketchUp... see if VisTools runs normally after a restart.

I have never used ThomThom's installer tool,... NOR DID I EVER SAY VisTools was compatible with it!

I recommend using the built-in "Install Extension..." button on the Extensions panel of the Preferences dialog (via the Window menu.)

[hygicell]

sorry to have upset you, I am only asking for help

Thomthom's install pugin has always worked fine for me

I have restarted Sketchup several times, to no avail
I deleted the intrepidBear folder,
the errors remained

I then reinstalled the plugin through the built-in "Install Extension..." button on the Extensions panel of the Preferences dialog (via the Window menu.)
the error messages still remained,
I could not find the menu bar, the plugin was not working

I deleted the intrepidBear folder again,
now the errors still remain
is there anything else I shoud delete?

might it be that there is a conflict with TIG' s selectionhideshow.rb ?
viewtopic.php?t=19576

greetings
Frank

[thomthom]

??

That's just bizarre. This Vistool is an RBZ, right? The Simple Installer uses the API to install RBZ so it should be the same as Install Extensions from the UI.

No idea what produces that.

Looks like the content of the .rb file is HTML ... ? :s

Tried re-downloading?

Have you looked at the content of the .rb file? Can you upload it for inspection?

[thomthom]

here is the .rbz file

grts
Frank