How do you access object attributes outside of self,sibling or parent

SketchUp Dynamic Components
1

To get to a self attribute
Attribute = some formula with attributeName

To get to sibling attribute
Attribute = some formula with SiblingName!attributeName

To get to parent attribute
Attribute = some formula with ParentName!attributeName

If I try to get to a grandparent attribute
Attribute = some formula with GrandParentName!attributeName
I get an error

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2

You can only get to attributes of components contained within the same top level component. Within that context, you can access any attribute with:
ComponentName!attributeName

If you leave out ComponentName!, you are referencing an attribute in the same component as the reference.

There is 1 other, generic reference available:
parent!attributeName which references attributeName in the component which is the immediate parent of the referencing component.

So, to get to an attribute of a GrandParent, you have two choices:

  1. Just use the name of the grandparent: GrandParentName!attributeName or
  2. Add a custom attribute to the PARENT. In that attribute, use parent!attributeNameinGrandParent, then in your attribute, again use the parent!attributeNameinParent
3

Just thinkin’ out loud here: Can we chain ? ie, parent!parent!attributeName ?

It sure would make things simpler.

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4

That would be nice, but I don’t think it currently exists.

What would be a real world use case? I’m guessing a small fraction of DCs even have 3 levels, and at that point, they’re fairly complex components where the designer must already keep careful track of sub component names.

5

What was driving this was the desire to have global variables for the entire project. I would like to have a global variable with length and height for the entire project. Is there a way to have global variables?

David Bolt
Founder
865.603.0520 Cell & TXT
DwBolt@Sustainablefuture.biz mailto:DwBolt@Sustainablefuture.biz Email
www.SustainableFuture.biz http://www.sustainablefuture.biz/ Web
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6

Only way I can think of is to enclose your entire project in one component.

7

What I’ve ended up doing is creating a DC at the top level called _Param where all my global variables are

All the top level DC have access via _Param!{name}

Here the Back wall needs to know how big it is based on the the floorLenx,
so It pulls it from the _Param

Bottom (the Bottom plate, get info from it’s parent).

This all is a bit labor intensive, but it makes information path’s very visible.

Thanks for the ideas and help

David Bolt
Founder
865.603.0520 Cell & TXT
DwBolt@Sustainablefuture.biz mailto:DwBolt@Sustainablefuture.biz Email
www.SustainableFuture.biz http://www.sustainablefuture.biz/ Web
Newsletter Signup http://sustainablefuture.biz/about-us/newsletter-signup/

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