What would be the best way to temporarily hide a component instance?

Developers Ruby API
1

Hello,

In a customized move tool, I would like to hide the moved component instance until the user click on the destination point to be able to draw only its skeleton.

I tried the following trick :

instance.move!(Geom::scaling(0.0))

It seems to work as expected on current SketchUp versions, but it uses a null matrix that may be a problem for the future.

Did someone find a better way to temporarily hide a component instance ?

Enregistrement de l’écran 2025-09-16 à 11.12.41-GIF 720x720 15 ips

2

What about creating a non-visible tag and assigning it to the instance?

3

This operation would be added to the undo stack, no ?

4

:light_bulb: one idea:
You can start_operation on the first click and hide the instance.
Then on a second click abort_operation then make start_operation again followed by transforming the instance into place. than commit_operation.
In a meantime put abort_operation within onCancel(reason, view) method so if the user hit Escape or other reason, the hidden will be revoked.

Something like this (it is just a concept, did not tried…)

class ExampleTool
  def initialize
    @stage = 0
  end
  def onCancel(reason, view)
    view.model.abort_operation
    @stage = 0
    view.invalidate
  end
  def onLButtonDown(flags, x, y, view)
    if @stage == 0
      view.model.start_operation("hide")
      @instance.hidden = true
      @stage += 1
    else
      view.model.abort_operation #this will unhide the instance
      view.model.start_operation("move")
      #transform instance to place
      view.model.commit_operation
    end
    view.invalidate
  end
  def onMouseMove(flags, x, y, view)
    #calculatet the trnsformation...etc
  end
  def draw(view)
    # draw the bounds of instance if stage not 0
  end
end

By the way, you can move the instance constantly - by set transformation in onMouseMove -using a similar method and you don’t have to hide it and don’t need to draw temporarily bounds…

BTW. I wery much like your trick with instance.move!(Geom::scaling(0.0)) !!! :+1:

5

Thank you for your suggestion.

Yes, but by drawing only the skeleton, it is easier to target a point that could be behind the moved object.

6

Use X-ray image :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Of course, it would be nice if we could apply it to just one instance in Ruby, like the Move Tool is doing it… :slight_smile: (Changing the material and back of each face would be too intensive task for pure Ruby, I think.)