Full Version: ArcCAM

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Michael,

Is there a way to pass data to the UI. As an example, I want to be able to populate input fields with defaults.

EDIT: I did discover moi.command.setOption and moi.command.getOption and that works. But in my testing, it fails if toIni is true.

>Len

---

Hi Len,

re:
> Is there a way to pass data to the UI. As an example, I want to be able to populate input fields
> with defaults.

Is it the UI for a command? There is usually a default="" attribute you can set on the control, like:

    <moi:NumericInput id="Angle" default="360.0"/>

You'll need the control to have a unique id="" value on it. When the command starts, it will initialize controls, setting them to their last used value (unless style="persist:false" is set) or to the default="" value if it's the first run of that command.

The last used value is stored using the id="" value as a lookup key, so a unique id value should be set for each control for that to work.

- Michael

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Michael,

My previous post edit may have crossed your response.

I did discover moi.command.setOption and moi.command.getOption and that works. But in my testing, it fails if toIni is true. I dont wanna store any of my stuff in the main ini, but I did test to see if it would work, and it doesnt appear to.

I'm setting up my own ini file with defaults and last used value storage. From what I observe, Moi doesn't save last used values on restart.

>Len

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Hi Len, yes the normal behavior is that UI controls save and restore their last used values within the same program run but not between program runs.

The reason for that is to avoid the problem where someone who is learning MOI experiments with changing some options and then gets confused when their UI has different behavior than what is shown when they are following a tutorial.

If you want them to persist between program runs then you would need to do that with your own script code calling moi.command.getOption() / setOption() with the "to ini" parameter set to true. That will store the value in the [Commands] section of the moi.ini file.


> but I did test to see if it would work, and it doesnt appear to.

Can you post the code you tried that did not work? If the option hasn't been stored there yet it will throw an exception from getOption() so you need to have it set in a try {} catch {} block.

- Michael

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I would test by toggling these two lines on and off. If I remove true, it works. And BTW it just quietly dies without throwing an error.

//alert( moi.command.getOption( 'ArcCAM.htm_test' ) );
	
//moi.command.setOption( 'ArcCAM.htm_test', '1234567', true );

And yes I did discover that it will throw an error is setOption is not called first.

>Len

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Hi Len, both getOption and setOption need to have the "use ini" parameter added.

If you call moi.command.getOption( 'ArcCAM.htm_test' ) that will get it from the runtime storage.

You need to call moi.command.getOption( 'ArcCAM.htm_test', true ) to get it from ini storage.

You don't want to have a mismatch with the get coming from runtime storage and the set going to ini storage.

It's good to have the get wrapped in a try / catch block to handle the exception that will be triggered if there isn't any value present.

var value = false;

try {
    value = moi.command.getOption( 'ArcCAM.htm_test', true );
} catch(e) {}

It would probably have been better for this to return undefined if no value had ever been set rather than throwing an exception but it's difficult to change things that are in use.

- Michael

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I was watching the ini file to see if it changed and it did not. Is the ini file only written on close?

>Len

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Is there a way to run a command from a directory other than moi://AppData/commands? I have tried a few different ways, but nothing seems to work.

<moi:CommandButton icon="moi://appdata/icons/ArcCAMIcon.png" command="moi://appdata/ArcCAM/ArcCAM.js">

>Len

---

Hi Len,

re:
> I was watching the ini file to see if it changed and it did not. Is the ini file only written on close?

Yes, the moi.ini file is read from disk when the program starts, and written to disk when the program ends.

Any changes to it during run time happen to an in-memory version.

You can trigger it to be written by calling moi.settings.writeIniFile();

- Michael

---

Hi Len,

re:
> Is there a way to run a command from a directory other than moi://AppData/commands? I
> have tried a few different ways, but nothing seems to work.

It will look first in the install commands directory, then in the appdata commands directory and then through any directories listed in moi.ini under
[Commands]
AdditionalCommandsDirs=

There can be multiple directories listed there separated by semi-colons.

- Michael

---

Michael,

Can I use moi://appdata/ or %appdata% as part of the path to AdditionalCommandsDirs?

>Len

---

Hi Len,

Re:
> Can I use moi://appdata/ or %appdata% as part of the path to AdditionalCommandsDirs?

Have you looked at the example function called instantScript() in the API? I'm wondering if maybe running your code as a script rather than a command might give you more flexibility. Another thing to look at is shellExecute in the Filesystem section.

- Peer

---

I'll look into instantScript() closer. I have already tested shellExecute and may use that for some python or database connectivity. But it still doesn't solve the ease of installation issue.

Its easier to tell someone to put this exactly in your ini file:

"moi://appdata/ArcCam"

Than to tell them:

"C:\users\YOUR WINDOWS USERNAME HERE\AppData\Roaming\Moi"

A lot of them wouldn't even know what their Windows username is. Windows is frustrating compared to how easy I can do this stuff in Linux.

>Len

---

Hi Len,

For seamless installation I guess you'd need a standalone installer script that asks MoI for the location of the appData directory, copies your files there, and maybe writes the path to moi.ini if the files are put in their own folder. I can't think of a way to add a command just by typing something in moi.ini

The closest thing I've done is a startup script that replaces a native file with my own by copying my html file from the startup scripts folder. That still requires manually navigating to the startup scripts folder to put the script and html there though.

doReplacePromptSaveChanges();

function doReplacePromptSaveChanges() {

    var existingName = moi.filesystem.getUiDir() + 'PromptSaveChanges.htm';
    var backupName = existingName + '.bak';
    var backupExists = moi.filesystem.fileExists( backupName );

    if (backupExists === false) {

        // backup PromptSaveChanges.htm
        moi.filesystem.copyFile(existingName, backupName );

        // overwrite PromptSaveChanges.htm
        var replacerName = moi.filesystem.getAppDataDir() + 'startup/' + 'PromptSaveChanges.htm';
        moi.filesystem.copyFile(replacerName, existingName );
    }
}

- Peer

---

Hi Len,

re:
> Can I use moi://appdata/ or %appdata% as part of the path to AdditionalCommandsDirs?

Unfortunately no, it can only take a regular file system path there, not a moi:// URL or environment variable.

How about a new mechanism that would scan through any folders under say appdata/plugins and look for a commands folder inside of there.

So then the install would be to put your stuff inside appdata/plugins/ArcCAM and your commands would be under appdata/plugins/ArcCAM/commands and I could also look for startup scripts inside appdata/plugins/ArcCAM/startup ?

And you could put images inside appdata/plugins/ArcCAM/icons and those would work already using moi://appdata/plugins/ArcCAM/icons/file.png .

- Michael

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Michael,

I like it!

I've been messing around with NSIS today, and it is able to fiddle with moi.ini, but I don't feel comfortable with that. Having a plug-in container seems much safer.

>Len

---

Hi Len, ok I will set this up for the next v5 beta. So it will look for commands in directories inside appdata/plugins/<PluginName>/commands and will also look for startup scripts (scripts to run when MOI is launched) under appdata/plugins/<PluginName>/startup.

So you won't have to modify moi.ini for that and to install you can have it in a .zip and unzip it under appdata/plugins.

- Michael

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Hi Michael,

Will it also look for appdata/plugins/<PluginName>/scripts ?

- Peer

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Hi Peer,

re:
> Will it also look for appdata/plugins/<PluginName>/scripts ?

I should be able to make that work too.

- Michael

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Thanks Michael. I like this new plugin folder idea of yours.

- Peer

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