Network Install of STL Extension Packaging

Technical Problems SketchUp
#1

HI,

I work at a school and have just been asked to install the https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/sketchup-stl extension on all of the machines in our DT department.

Normally I can push out updates/extensions to applications with an MSI installer or an EXE with switches using our Network Management Tool (Burconix)

However I have never encountered an .RBZ file before and cant seem to seen any instructions on how I could roll this out to multiple computers (about 90 of them so installing 1 by 1 is really not an option)

Does anyone have any advice on how this can be achieved?

#2

As it is a free plugin perhaps you could suggest your employer pays you to install it on each machine.

#3

I’ve never had to do this, but I’ve read about totally manually installing extensions. This is what I’d try, but confidence is only about 60%!

  1. Find the .rbz for an installed extension.
  2. Make a copy.
  3. Rename it to .zip
  4. Examine the .zip file - you’re looking for any file name that you can then search for on a machine that has already installed the extension.
  5. Find that file name on a machine with the extension installed. Note the location (path).

Now go back to your new .rbz.
6) Copy it
7) rename to .zip
8) unzip it

Now you have the set of files (and folders) that is the actual extension - and the path where they need to be on target machines. Is that enough?

Things I’d worry about with the above procedure:

  • the path obtained in step #5 may need to be altered - with some parts replaced by environment variables
  • Do you (or the installer mechanism) have the necessary privileges to place the files where they need to go?
#4

SJ - thanks for the reply - your suggestion sounds like it would work - but is not really what I need.

I am now finding that even if I install the extension manually as an admin(I have had to as a work around) it is only active for that admin- meaning I need to install it as the user too - that just doesn’t work on a school network - I can’t make the students admins to install the extension even if I wanted to.

I can’t be breaking new ground here - has anyone made these extensions work in a network setting?

#5

Haven’t used Burconix, but I’m sure with things like Puppet or FileWave or other things, it shouldn’t be hard. Do users login to machines and have their own login, or a shared login? I’m not near a PC at the moment, but on Mac for all users, you place the extension in /Library/Application\ Support/SketchUp\ 2017/SketchUp/Plugins/ instead of HOME_DIR/Library/ etc…

#6

On a PC, you could simply copy the entire contents of the Extension’s RBZ [un-ZIPped] into the shared folder:

C:\ProgramData\SketchUp\SketchUp 2017\SketchUp\Plugins

Then ALL users on that PC will have access to that Extension.

As well as loading Extensions from the User’s own …/AppData…/Plugins folder, SketchUp also loads any Extensions it finds in the PC’s shared Plugins folder.
The ProgramData folder is hidden by default.
If this shared Plugins folder doesn’t exists [the initial default set up] then you’ll need to make it before adding the files etc…
Make sure you copy ALL files/subfolders in the RBZ, keeping all the files inside the Extension’s shipped subfolders etc.
PS: If you haven’t upgraded yet, then you’ll need to adjust the SketchUp version in the shared Plugins folder path to say 2016…

#7

For making Extension available on Macs for all users, follow the steps below

  1. Install Sketchup 2018.
  2. Launch it and install STL extensions using .rbz file provided by Sketchup extension warehouse.
  3. After you install the extension, You should now be able to see “Export STL” in the file menu. Exit Sketchup pro.
  4. Now COPY “Sketchup” folder from User\library folder (hold the option key to make this folder visible since it’s a hidden folder) to Library\Application Support\Sketchup 2018.
  5. Finally change permission on “Sketchup” folder so it’s accessible to all users using the command below in terminal window. Authenticate with admin credentials.

Sudo chmod -R 777 \Library\Application\ support/Sketchup\ 2018/Sketchup

You can create a small script of the above mentioned steps.