Unlock the built in PIO's.

[brudgers]

Rather than making everyone wait around for long standing issues to be addressed (aka stairs), why not use an more open and community oriented approach?

Edited July 8, 2009 by brudgers

[C. Andrew Dunning]

Is it a fair assumption that those following this thread have seen the script examples at http://www.nemetschek.net/support/custom/vscript/example.php ?

I've found taking a peek at some of them to be helpful - at least in terms of understanding how the basic PIO types work.

[brudgers]

That resource has probably already had it's full impact on the Vectorworks community.

[Christiaan]

Most of the Open Source licenses require that anything derived from them to also be open source. So, if you use any (even one line) of code that you have seen in the samples, your SHOULD license your code as open also.

And, as you imply, other licenses don't require derivatives to be open source. There's nothing about opening sourcing NNA core plugins that need force others to suddenly start having to develop their own plugins in open source.

It is also likely that people would latch onto the open source idea and expect (ie not be willing to pay for) anything as it is "supposed" to be open.

But what if better plugins are created and maintained through open sourcing them? We could turn your argument on its back and then say that NNA customers are currently being expected to accept a lower quality product and subsidise the incomes of others in the process.

In any case if 3rd party developers produced closed source plugins that offered clear value then people are going to buy them. (I know of one company I would certainly purchase off if I was using the app they develop for: http://www.cadimagetools.com/ )

[Christiaan]

Most of you seem interested in the source code of core plugins for the purposes of learning. I guess I'm more interested in seeing the ability of 3rd parties being able to offer up improvements to the core plugins. God knows they need it.

[brudgers]

Most of you seem interested in the source code of core plugins for the purposes of learning. I guess I'm more interested in seeing the ability of 3rd parties being able to offer up improvements to the core plugins. God knows they need it.

Originally, the idea was just improving vectorworks by shortening the to do list for programmers at NNA.

While a few additional code examples might generate an another scripter or two, it's not really going to have a major impact.

[C. Andrew Dunning]

Originally, the idea was just improving vectorworks by shortening the to do list for programmers at NNA.

While a few additional code examples might generate an another scripter or two, it's not really going to have a major impact.

You are probably correct. By bringing up the scripting examples, I intended simply to make the point that there are a few examples floating about. Not that many, but they are there.

This thread really has two related, but distinctly different directions:

1) Opening locked PIOs and scripts so that interested parties in the VW community can help to improve/fix them.

2) Opening locked PIOs and scripts so that interested parties can learn from them and develop additional tools and commands.

Both have merit...