Question at the top: is there a way to parse Grasshopper.dll (or some other source) for information about all components? Specifically the gh_guid, input count, and output count.
I’ve been studying the .ghx structure since the hackathon. Just finished a quick POC for the client-side “dynamically composed definitions” thing I was preaching about. It can take this syntax:
And, with a simple little Request.send(uri, definition) helper, can return:
It abstracts away the schema and all the grouping stuff so you can work with components and parameters directly. Which is nice. The prospect of attaching grasshopper logic to any web frontend gets me all excited. But if you check out the code, you’ll see that it only works with the multiplication component and the number parameter. To get this to work I had to manually map component names to their grasshopper metadata.
I really don’t mind chiseling away at the list and adjusting the syntax for strange cases. But it feels like it’d make more sense to do some code generation based on the grasshopper source, kind of like what rhino3dm does now.
Got the following (limited?) result when parsing Grasshopper.dll in \Rhino 6\Plug-ins\Grasshopper\. Do you know if the standard grasshopper component library is stored somewhere else?
Was having issues with Grasshopper.dll trying to load a bunch of external dependencies like System.Windows.Forms. Code used:
var path = new FileInfo(@".\dll\Grasshopper.dll");
var assembly = AssemblyLoadContext.Default.LoadFromAssemblyPath(path.FullName);
try {
Console.WriteLine(assembly.GetTypes());
}
catch (ReflectionTypeLoadException e) {
e.Types
.Where(t => t != null)
.Where(t => t.IsSubclassOf(typeof(GH_Component)))
.ToList()
.ForEach(t => Console.WriteLine(t.Name));
}
Edit:
I opened my eyes and found the Grasshopper\Components\ folder. But their results are still a bit confusing. Here’s ALL types from MathComponents.dll for example:
Yes, most components are part of several gha files shipped with grasshopper. If you have access to GH at runtime, you can use the Grasshopper.Instances.ComponentServer to find all loaded components and parameters (and other objects such as groups, scribbles, jumps etc.)
Snippet that works in the grasshopper C# component, for posterity. I struggled a bit before realizing what ObjectProxies were. You could not have made it any easier for me. Massive thanks.
var gha = Grasshopper.Instances.ComponentServer.Libraries;
var names = new List<string>();
var ids = new List<string>();
var proxies = Grasshopper.Instances.ComponentServer.ObjectProxies;
for (int i = 0; i < proxies.Count; i++) {
ids.Add(proxies[i].Guid.ToString());
names.Add(proxies[i].Desc.Name);
}
var z = ids.IndexOf(ids.Find(w => w.IndexOf("ce46b74e-00c9-43c4-805a-193b69ea4a11") >= 0));
A = names[z];
B = ids[z];
The last part was me confirming with a guid I already knew. Will attempt the codegen with a compute server tomorrow evening. I have work in a few hours
The indexes there are just referencing a pile of classes for each component. So, resthopper can also compose “explicitly,” with all the autocomplete and security that comes with it:
Time to generate “everything” and see what happens. The library is also limited to one input per parameter right now. Still trying to better understand how more complex data trees translate to .ghx and, then, how to represent that in javascript.
End goal is not to just be able type out grasshopper definitions, even though that’s kind of funny. Going to tie this up to a little UI and see where we can go.
