New RUI issue

[Charles]

I was brave and dared to make a new ‘Toolbar group’ yesterday.
The goal is a RUI to distribute.
All was fine up to a certain point, then all was lost.

So today I tried again with a simplified data set.
TestSVG.zip (18.5 KB)

In the end, all was lost again.

Do I do something wrong, or is the system still not reliable?

SysInfo

Rhino 8 SR9 2024-6-11 (Rhino 8, 8.9.24163.15301, Git hash:master @ 17c7f1c7c05ff0e0b5b12288d13a911b1f0767b4)
License type: Commercial, build 2024-06-11
License details: Cloud Zoo

Windows 11 (10.0.22631 SR0.0) or greater (Physical RAM: 32GB)
.NET 7.0.20

Computer platform: DESKTOP

Standard graphics configuration.
Primary display and OpenGL: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (NVidia) Memory: 8GB, Driver date: 4-11-2024 (M-D-Y). OpenGL Ver: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 552.22
> Accelerated graphics device with 4 adapter port(s)
- Windows Main Display attached to adapter port 0

OpenGL Settings
Safe mode: Off
Use accelerated hardware modes: On
Redraw scene when viewports are exposed: On
Graphics level being used: OpenGL 4.6 (primary GPU’s maximum)

Anti-alias mode: 4x
Mip Map Filtering: Linear
Anisotropic Filtering Mode: High

Vendor Name: NVIDIA Corporation
Render version: 4.6
Shading Language: 4.60 NVIDIA
Driver Date: 4-11-2024
Driver Version: 31.0.15.5222
Maximum Texture size: 32768 x 32768
Z-Buffer depth: 24 bits
Maximum Viewport size: 32768 x 32768
Total Video Memory: 8 GB

Rhino plugins that do not ship with Rhino
C:\Program Files\SimLab\Plugins\SimLab 3D PDF From Rhino 6\plugins\SimLabPDFExporter.rhp “SimLab PDF Exporter”

Rhino plugins that ship with Rhino
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Commands.rhp “Commands” 8.9.24163.15301
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\WebBrowser.rhp “WebBrowser”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\rdk.rhp “Renderer Development Kit”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\RhinoScript.rhp “RhinoScript”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\IdleProcessor.rhp “IdleProcessor”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\RhinoRenderCycles.rhp “Rhino Render” 8.9.24163.15301
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\rdk_etoui.rhp “RDK_EtoUI” 8.9.24163.15301
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\NamedSnapshots.rhp “Snapshots”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\MeshCommands.rhp “MeshCommands” 8.9.24163.15301
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\RhinoCycles.rhp “RhinoCycles” 8.9.24163.15301
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Toolbars\Toolbars.rhp “Toolbars” 8.9.24163.15301
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\3dxrhino.rhp “3Dconnexion 3D Mouse”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\Displacement.rhp “Displacement”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8\Plug-ins\SectionTools.rhp “SectionTools”

[Gijs (Gijs de Zwart)]

hi @Charles thanks for sending the files.
there is still some mix-up happing with rui and xml files, and so far I haven’t been able to pinpoint how it happens.
When you closed the toolbar, did you have any other instances of Rhino open?

When I open your toolbar, all seems fine:

[Charles]

@Gijs

When you closed the toolbar, did you have any other instances of Rhino open?

OF COURSE not

@Gijs

When I open your toolbar, all seems fine:

Is that on Apple?

In Windows I have this:

Also note the stacked button in Child1.

[Gijs (Gijs de Zwart)]

@Charles

Is that on Apple?

yes, but I get the same result in Windows.
For some reason Rhino doesn’t clean the xml files it generates.
I bet you get a good toolbar once you find the similarly named xml file in your Scheme_Default folder
(%appdata%/mcneel/rhinoceros/8.0/settings)

@Charles

OF COURSE not

I didn’t expect that, but still needed to make sure

[Charles]

Now I tried something, in

%AppData%\McNeel\Rhinoceros\8.0\settings\Scheme__Default

I deleted

[Charles]

Oh same idea…

Ok, after deleting that file (while the SINGLE instance of Rhino was closed), it works.

[Gijs (Gijs de Zwart)]

I’ve been hunting this problem for a while, but unfortunately cannot reproduce it on my end. Here the xml always gets erased correctly when I save the rui and close Rhino.

[Charles]

@Gijs

Here the xml always gets erased correctly

I see the same in here now…

@Gijs

correctly when I save the rui and close Rhino.

I’d expect the xml is killed right after the rui is saved.
And not when Rhino shuts down.
If Rhino should crash or somehow forgets what to do, killing the xml wouldn’t happen.

[Helvetosaur]

@Charles

I’d expect the xml is killed right after the rui is saved.
And not when Rhino shuts down.

Yep, that is my experience too. @stevebaer shut off the automatic saving of .rui files awhile back because there were too many bugs when that happened… A number if them have now been fixed. I don’t know when it should be turned back on…

[Charles]

Now that I understood what can happen, I was sure that creating a new toolbar with more than 3 sample buttons would work.

No, it doesn’t.

Every 2-3 buttons I explicitly saved the RUI.
The XML was killed on shutdown Rhino.
All should be good.
On next Rhino start: Toolbar destroyed.

I can’t provide steps to retrace the errors.

My ‘solution’ for now is

• make 2 buttons
• copy the RUI for backup
• copy the XML for backup
• save the RUI in Rhino
• close Rhino
• start Rhino

If I’m lucky, then I can continue making buttons.
If not, I have to fiddle with my backup copies.

Now I could express my mood, but that won’t help either.

[Helvetosaur]

Dunno, I recently made a toolbar with 18 buttons in one go, and it still works fine.

However, that being said, I no longer make new toolbar buttons in the classic way. I first make all the macros that will go in the LMB/RMB via the Macros dialog, including macro name, commands, tooltips image etc. Then I make all the buttons, choosing the macros from the library.

[Charles]

@Helvetosaur

I no longer make new toolbar buttons in the classic way.

Good you found a reliable workflow.
I think I’ll copy your workflow when it comes to the next catastrophe.

For now I’ll continue, I’m half way through.

[Charles]

Puh, finally ready now.

Around 110 buttons in 4 toolbars.
Took me 1.5 days.
Time for creating the SVGs not included.

I had to use my intermediate backups quite often.
In fact I had to make ~500 buttons

Did I mention that the process is easier and much much faster in V7?

[Gijs (Gijs de Zwart)]

@charles, I tried following your process to recreate the toolbars the way you did in the video, and it just worked well for the most part. I agree that deleting the xml right on save should be better, but I’m afraid it is not going to work very well with multiple instances open. But @stevebaer will be able to judge this better.

I will ask what the current status is regarding the xml files for custom RUI files. As mentioned before, the ultimate goal is to get rid of them completely for custom RUI files.

[Charles]

@Gijs

(XML)
goal is to get rid of them completely for custom RUI files

Sounds good!

The multiple instances ‘problem’ is still the same.
Perhaps a warning like
'Multiple instances detected. The last closed Rhino will win writing the settings.'
could be helpful.

[Charles]

I think this is related:

Toolbar issue #x

I made a toolbar group, filename is T:\Desktop\Single.rui. Before distributing it, I need to test. While Rhino is closed, I delete T:\Desktop\Single.rui. And start Rhino. Toolbar shouldn’t appear, and yes, it doesn’t. Also the library is gone. Good, as expected. Quit Rhino. Surprise surprise Rhino created T:\Desktop\Single.rui. File size 0 bytes. This can’t be right. Rem.: I did NOT save the RUI. I thought differences are ONLY stored in the buddy XML?