How to update pages without changing settings of irrelevant section planes?

Developers Ruby API
1

I am trying to change section_plane settings from activate to deactivate or the other way from different scene.

Here are my code

model = Sketchup.active_model
# With three params, it shows all text boxes:
prompts = ["What is the building name?", "When was this building built?"]
defaults = ["Enter name", "Example: 1972"]
input = UI.inputbox(prompts, defaults, "Tell me about This building.")

pages = model.pages

pages.each {|page|

  if page.name.to_i<input[1].to_i
    entities = Sketchup.active_model.entities
    puts "#{page.name} is smaller than #{input[1]}"
    all_groups = entities.grep(Sketchup::Group)
    my_group = all_groups.find { |g| g.name == input[0] } # nil if not found
    my_entities = my_group.entities
    section_plane = my_entities.grep(Sketchup::SectionPlane).first
    puts "#{section_plane}"
    section_plane.activate if my_group
    #page.update
  elsif page.name.to_i>=input[1].to_i
    entities = Sketchup.active_model.entities
    puts "#{page.name} is equal or greater than #{input[1]}"
    all_groups = entities.grep(Sketchup::Group)
    my_group = all_groups.find { |g| g.name == input[0] } # nil if not found
    my_group.entities.active_section_plane= nil if my_group
    #page.update
  else
    break
  end
  #page.update

UI.messagebox page}

this code works perfectly fine to change section plane settings without the page.update function. However, when I try to use page.update. I think the command my_group.entities.active_section_plane= nil if my_group overwrites all of the section_plane settings which should just overwrite the section_plane it belongs to.

2

Moreover, I am wondering how section_plane is stored? Because we could find the section_plane under its parent group. However, it interact with pages somehow. Is there a way to find section_plane in pages entities?

3

I wrapped my condition into a defined method and it works, not sure why it doesn’t work in this way yet.

4

AGAIN … Please read … :arrow_right: [How to] Post correctly formatted and colorized code on the forum?
… and post your code so it can be read with proper indentation, color lexing, and in a proportional font.

1 Like
6

sorry about that… I uploaded it and then I realized the problem. I tried to delete the topic but I am not qualified…

7

Thanks for that tip. I only posted code once I think, and I’m sure it came out ugly!

8

Don’t delete. Edit the original post using the pencil button.

1 Like
9

It might be the break keyword ? This would break out of the iteration block.

I would instead suggest that you should use the keyword next so as to continue the iteration with the next page in the pages collection.

The Sketchup::Page class does not have an entities collection. A Scene Page is a view of the model with specific settings set a certain way. A scene page is not a geometric object.

A section plane is a Sketchup::Drawingelement subclass object, just as a dimension is, etc. So it can be a member of a Sketchup::Entities collection (of a group, component or the model itself.)

Not quite correct. It does not really overwrite all. Setting the active section plane for an entities object to nil, only applies to that specific entities object. But, each entities object can have multiple section planes, yet only one section plane can be active within each entities collection at a time.
So setting an entities collection’s active_section_plane to nil will switch off ALL of that entities collection’s section planes. Setting an entities collection’s active section plane to a section plane different from the previous setting, deactivates the previous section plane and actives the latter one.

However, a page update saves the settings for ALL of the entities objects that have section planes.
The scene page should also have the use_section_planes= true flag set.

10

Thank you for your response Dan.
I made some changes to my code, packed them as function/method. and the problem is magically solved.

  pages.each{ |page|
    loaded_file.each{ |array|
      if array[1].to_i > page.name.to_i
        activate_plane(array[0])
      elsif array[2].to_i < page.name.to_i
        print(array[2])
        activate_plane(array[0])
      else
        deactivate_plane(array[0])
      end
    }
    page.update
  }
}