I’m working with long lists of document names, I compare them all the time. A couple of things about the Panel component might make my life easier.
Display the total number of items or tree branches somewhere always visible.
In the case of tree structure it could look like that: 221 items total in 3 branches - it might be a bit too long text to display, so maybe some universal symbol for the item and tree branch should appear after numbers?
Too many times I need to scroll down the list just to check the number of items in the list. Components like List Length and Tree Statistics are good when you actively use their outputs in the definition, when used just to preview data they quickly clutter the canvas and make definitions less readable.
Highlight and pick one or multiple items to copy from the panel.
Very common thing to do. I got hundreds of strings in the list and I need to get only one item out of the panel, copy it, and send it to my colleague or paste it external database.
Right now this process is too tedious. I need to right-click “Copy Data Only” paste it in Notepad, use search to find it inside the long list and finally select and copy.
Quick search inside Panel.
This search should allow us to quickly (preferably live) search and check the occurrence of some items. Searching with the use of the Match Text component is sometimes overkill, it needs 2 more components and bloats the canvas. It should give us temporary results by highlighting parts of the stings and giving us the ability to copy all items/strings that meet the search criteria.
Ability to copy-paste very long texts.
I would like just copy-paste rows from an excel file without worrying that my paste will shrink because of the limit of characters without me even knowing about it. The screenshot above shows 34 characters long filenames. Currently, in the project, there are over 3500 documents - that far exceeded the character limit of copy-pasting into a panel.
I would add to this : being able to select one/several rows in the panel, and those specific items get highlighted in Rhino. Now I’m using Tree Branch if I wand to inspect a specific (usually, erroneous) element.
De-prioritizing the text formatting, see the image below. I’d rather be able to double-click and change the data than deal with all the formatting icons. I rarely use them anyway.
Input multiline data with the search keyword shortcut (") instead of only one line.
Preview item indexes when editing multiline data.
I know I need to remove item with index 19. When editing Panel item indexes disappear and this simple task is getting more difficult because instead of removing item with index 19 I need to remember the number I want to delete and search for it with my eyes.
I really use too much List item component just to select one item - it’s slow and tiring.
This is a very common scenario when working with Rhino Inside Revit. Long list of objects with their names and IDs, but it’s annoyingly troublesome to select one ID from the list and use it somewhere. The fastest way is to just read the panel and type 7-digit IDs manually, but it’s not fun either.
Yes, I know about numerous ways to filter out what I need, the issue here is speed and convenience. Panel is the most common way to preview data, I would like to not use and configure another component to select the text that I already see displayed right under my cursor. When working in Grasshopper I do that dozens of times throughout the day.
I am using Power Toys but haven’t tried the Text Extractor. I was about to say that this is a brilliant solution but after some tests, I see that e.g. underscore characters are ignored. In that case, it’s just a very good tip. It works for the IDs.
It works for the IDs.