Stefan Bender

Thanks Joshua! If there is no official way to create and define visualizations, we will not bother with undocumented data nodes. I was just asked for an alternative solution to a rather unimportant problem that could have been solved by a hard-coded data visualization.

Dear developers, is there a way to create and/or activate data visualizations via SDK? I couldn't find any functions or extensions. Thanks for a short note! Best regards, Stefan Bender

Dear developers, how can we create extrudes/solids with different graphial attributes on each face? Are there any SDK functions for that? It seems that the Cabinet PIO does it in VW 2026, but I couldn't find anything in the SDK. It would be great if someone could give us a hint. Thanks a lot!

You could also try interactive reshaping. You can drag various corners or sides of the stair to change its shape. That could be more convenient than entering values.

Dear developers, is it possible to use a contextual help ID instead of a URL in functions virtual void VCOM_CALLTYPE AlertDialogWithHyperlink(const TXString& message, const TXString& adviceBeforeLink, const TXString& linkTitle, const TXString& linkURL, const TXString& adviceAfterLink) = 0; virtual void VCOM_CALLTYPE AlertCriticalWithHyperlink(const TXString& text, const TXString& adviceBeforeLink, const TXString& linkTitle, const TXString& linkURL, const TXString& adviceAfterLink) = 0; virtual void VCOM_CALLTYPE AlertInformWithHyperlink(const TXString& text, const TXString& adviceBeforeLink, const TXString& linkTitle, const TXString& linkURL, const TXString& adviceAfterLink, bool minorAlert = false, const TXString& category = "", const TXString& item = "", const TXString& checkboxOverrideText = "") = 0; ? This would be very helpful. We would like to direct users to certain pages of our help system without having to update the links in our code each year or whenever the page structure of the online help changes. Thanks for any help!

Hi Joshua, thanks a lot for your response! Yes, these values come from the data record, but there should be a way for the PIO to filter out unnecessary options when users actually click on the menu thus opening it. We don't intend to alter the choices list, but we need to prevent users from selecting one that is not available atm (both in OIP and worksheet cell). Imho this is a severe limitation/bug.

If a worksheet cell is referring to a PIO record field of type kFieldPopup, the user sees all popup choices if they click on the cell and the pull-down menu is shown. However, depending on other PIO settings, sometimes not all menu choices are possible so they should either be hidden or disabled. How can we do this? Imho this should be possible either in AllowWorksheetEdit or in another (non-existing?) function that is called directly before the menu actually is displayed and would allow the plug-in to disable/hide unnecessary options. Thanks for any help!

You might wish to check the new railing PIO to create railings for the stair instead of using the stair's railings.

Looks like a bug in the worksheet function that shouldn't allow you to edit values that are by style. But if something (like editing the style) triggers regeneration of the instances, the instances should be fixed (ie, the values should be replaced by the values of the style).

What you see in the drawing could be the top graphic of another stair. If it is actually the same stair, you might consider contacting support so they can submit a bug if there is no natural explanation for this behavior.

Actually, text in images is a problem if the plug-in has to be translated into another language.

Dear developers, in a QTO function (EQTOFunction::ObjectData, VWWSFunctionCall_EventSink::MyFunction(const SDispatchContext& context, VWVariant& outResult) our plug-in returns a VWVariant of type eVWVariantType_Bool (i.e., outResult = VWVariant((bool)(true/false)); But in the worksheet cell, no boolean value (localized true/false string) is displayed but only the number (1 for true, 0 for false). Imho this is a bug. A number should onmly be displayed if VWVariant is one of the numbers type. If VWVariant is of type bool, the cell should treat it as bool and display it as such. Do I need to submit a bug or is this WAD? If WAD, how else can I make sure that the actual bool value is displayed instead of a number?

I don't think this is expected behavior. You might wish to submit a bug.

Try reading object variable ovIsSectionViewport (use ISDK::GetObjectVariable()). There's a list of all available object variables in ObjectVariables.h.

Dear developers, we are adding some qto functions ('ObjectData') to a few of our PIOs. These plug-ins are meant to be used in different countries so they should be easily localizeable. Some of these QTO functions are a little complex and require more than one parameter. Some of these parameters must be strings from a given list, like parts of the plug-in or words like "interior" or "exterior". Let's say a function allows three additional parameters ObjectData('keyword',<param1>,<param2>,<param3>) and the string in the Opt Desc.vwstrings file would be "ObjectData-keyword" = "Objektdaten('keyword';<param1>;<param2>;<param3>)"; A sample would be: "ObjectData-doorhandletype" = "Objektdaten('DoorHandleType';<InteriorOrExterior>;<NoOfLeaf>)"; How can we make sure that users may use a localized version of 'DoorHandleType' or 'Interior/Exterior' when calling this? And how can we make sure that they see these localized names in the function description? And how can we define a list of valid localized options for <param1> and <param2>, in case of the sample the localized versions of "Interior" and "Exterior"? In theory, it is possible to support localized options, but all potential solutions would require more string files and a manual synchronization between these string files and the strings in Opt Desc.vwstrings and Opt Desc DB.vwstrings. It is very likely that localizers will fail to do this correctly and thus the localized versions of the PIO will fail or display an incorrect description. So my question is if there is a proposed workflow for such a synchronization, maybe some additional strings in OptDesc.vwstrings or something? I think there should be some sort of universal and localized name for function options and also for each parameter. The localized names should be stored in a localizeable string file and be used by VW when displaying the function descriptions. Or does this sort of workflow already exist? Thanks for any help, Stefan Bender

Hi Maarten, thanks a lot for your reply, but OnDefaultButtonEvent doesn't do anything when I call it there.

Dear developers, There are requests to quit a VWDialog during an ADD_LB_DIRECT_EDIT() event (i.e., when direct editing a list browser cell). The main idea is that if the user selects a custom SResource control (i.e. button button "New" or "Edit..." instead of selecting a resource) in a direct editable resource browser cell of a listbrowser, the dialog should close down and the user enters symbol edit mode. We could do this in "normal" dialog events by setting the item to 0, but how is this possible in a direct edit event? Or is there another way to force a dialog to quit? I tried CloseDialog(true), but no effect. Thanks for any help, Stefan Bender

Hi there, what is the recommended way for a PIO to offer information about the materials of certain components (window frame, glass, shutter...) to the data tag of to worksheet functions? I'm thiunking of a solution that does not require Psets or record fields with names of materials. Are there any special qto functions or interfaces for that? Is there a PIO that is actually doing this? Thanks for any help, Stefan Bender

Hi there, Iis there a way to disable a cell of a listbrowser so it doesn't receive events AND to make this disabled state clear to the user (grey background...)? I will need a general solution for all types of LB cells, not some do-it-yourself solution using a custom grey image or the like. Thanks for any help, Stefan Bender

Dear developers, does anybody have an idea how I can center an image in a list browser cell? I tried VWListBrowserItem vwi = lb->GetItem(ind_line, ind_column); vwi.SetItemTextJustification(kItemTextJustificationCenter); but no effect. I couldn't find any other functions. Thanks for any help, Stefan Bender

Dear developers, how can I create a generic solid that has the shape of a sphere? I tried CreateSphere and then ConvertToGenericSolid, but the conversion failed. Surprisingly, even manually (using menu command "Modify->Convert->Convert to generic solids") the action failed with an error message saying that this object type can't be converted. So what else can I do? A sphere isn't such an exotic object type so there really should be a way to to that. Thanks for any ideas, Stefan Bender

Thanks Joshua, I had already thought about something like that, but I'm not sure if the pointer and the data remain valid if the user switches to another document during the session. So I would prefer something that returns the "current" color table of the active document.

We frequently need to access the document color table. Atm we do VCOMPtr<VectorWorks::IDocumentColorTable> doccol( VectorWorks::IID_DocumentColorTable ); But that seems to be time-consuming so it would be great to get a handle/pointer to the current document's color table without having to create a new VCOM ptr each time. Is this possible? Thanks for any ideas, Stefan Bender

Not yet, but there are plans to implement this in a future version.

Yes, an empty image is provided. And it does work if you change it manually.