ScriptUI: Give your scripts a nice GUI the easy way
Recently I became interested in writing Python scripts for Blender (being the new maintainer of the Kerkythea exporter I needed to get a little training), I’m amazed by the control level supplied by the API, handling/creating objects/materials, modifying meshes/IPO curves, building/animating full scenes is almost straightforward (at least for any mid-level C/C++/Java/C# programmer), creating a script of average complexity is really a matter of minutes… at the pact of sticking to “Alt+P” scripts.
Yes, I have to admit it, the part where the Blender Python API isn’t shining is the GUI development framework, creating a good looking interface for your beloved script will cost you hours of coding & testing, but don’t worry, ScriptUI, a set of Python wrapper classes developed by Panzi, is going to help you a lot in this task.
This very handy extension has recently reached version 0.6.3a and features all the standard widgets plus some very usefull new ones (like RenderField), a very flexible and well designed wrapper for the standard pop-up menu system, a bunch of helper classes (like the RGBColor one wich supplies an HSV conversion routine), mouse-wheel support for scrolling widget sets and more, but its real strength is in the fact that it makes building GUIs easier’n’fun.
Definitively a must have for all the scripters around here :-)
How cool, I’m noticed by blendernation! :)
I wrote this script mainly because I really disliked the way to create GUIs with blender python plugins. I used it in my port and rewrite of klope’s TerryNoise.
old TerryNoise: http://klopes.iespana.es/enchufes.htm
new blender >= 2.3x version: http://elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38458
ScriptUI is not what I would call 100% complete, but It’s defenitly easyer to build GUIs with it than with blenders API. Currently I don’t have time to work on it, I have a lot of work to do for the university (I’m studying software engineering at the technical university in vienna), so don’t expect answers to bug reports or feature requests during this semester. In the summer I will have time and if there is something to fix and/or add, I will do it then.
(But I will most probably fix any reported bugs within days, even if I should do other work. ;) )
So thanks for the notice,
panzi
Not bad men by the way is there some kind of a GUI design guide so that the scrips look all the same?
Wow. Two days ago the download counter counted only ca. 20 downloads or so. But today: 158 Downloads, wait! already changed! (in 20 Sec.): 159 Downloads…. two minutes later: 160 Downloads! :)
Only a few things on my blog where downloaded more often (e.g. a animeted gif which shows the way to solve a specific algorithm and datastructures homework counts 414 downloads, which is aproximate the number of students).