I find the changes to the Query Model Layer component rather confusing compared to how it worked during the beta. Due to the default matching method, the component appears not to be working. It only finds all layers in Rhino, because if you add a text filter, the component’s output is empty.
Why can’t it be made to work so that without text fed into it, it has an asterisk value by default, allowing it to find all layers in the Rhino document? Then, if you add a text input it does a contain search. The way it is now is not only confusing (and complicated), it also isn’t user friendly, because it requires users to always change the component’s matching method if they want to actually perform a query with the component and a text string.
Also, I am wondering why the component adds: “Model Layer :” in front of the layer name as well as a seemingly random suffix, because this adds overload (you need to split off " : " and then cull the first and last index to perform a Query Model Layers with text input if you want to create a new layer or base a layer off of an existing one).
I think these components should add these internally, but they definitely shouldn’t be part of the output, because I need to get rid of them and often it messes up my layers names, by baking new layers in the parent layer called “Model Layer:”
So for example, if I am using referenced geometry, these components appear to fall short. The Content Details does not give me a path, and I can only get the ‘bloated’ layer name.
With the " : " as separators, you cannot get rid of the Space:Space with a single split text, for instance. If this were another sequence like “=” that would be easier.
That’s all fine, the point is that the suffix is “Model layer : Layername::Childlayername : (random ID)” this makes it difficult to get rid of the prefix and suffix: “Model layer : " and " : (random ID)” due to the inserted spaces alongside the single colon. So I’d have to get rid of spaces in my layer names too, otherwise I cannot easily get rid of the prefix and suffix that are added to the layer path, if you get what I mean (see example Query model layer - match methods - #7 by Intuos).
That’s because space characters in the ‘C’ (Separators) input to Text Split are not recognized. (I had to test this for myself just now and confirmed this happens in R7 too.)
Indeed, some User Text/ Attribute based xomoonents do not update in real time. If you rewire it after making the change ir use a trigger component, it should display the up-to-date value.
Using the Object socket, it does retrieve a layer. As a user I’d expect the geometry socket to also output the layer it is on, but knowing how this is structured, I see why it doesn’t (the layer is an attribute value, which geometry does not input).
Here’s another interesting case where the Query Model Objects component fails when you input a Query Model Layers due to having different requirements (Layer path vs Model layer paths).
Item Selector is part of the Human plugin, it’s a dropdown to choose from the list of inputs. It makes using list item redundant and you get to read the item you want.
The Heteroptera plugin has options for a checklist that works in a similar fashion FYI.
