Upgrading My GH App to Rhino 6

There are some good threads here on this topic:
https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/grasshopper-compatibility-rhino5-v-rhino6/56292
http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/how-do-i-install-a-custom-ghx

But, as one who isn’t very current, I wanted to review and ask for any comments.

  1. Installation: There is no official way to install a GH component so I will continue with my .msi strategy.
  2. Install location: The folder \Application Data\Grasshopper\Libraries is the same with both Revit 5 and 6. So previous installations will automatically work and I can continue to install to this location.
  3. Components designed to work with Rhino 5 will work with Rhino 6. There are some new elements in 6 that will not work with 5. At least for a while I should either avoid using these new elements or give users a separate 5-compatible version.

Anything else to watch out for? Thanks in advance.

Use RHI if at all possible. Or Yak, (our new package manager).

If you use RHI or Yak you do not have to worry about locations and versioning.

Yeah this is a problem. There are ways to ‘hide’ GHA files from GH on Rhino5 and ways to hide GHA files from GH on Rhino6. Let me know which one you need.

I’m only a few days into the transition so haven’t seen it all yet by any means (I have hundreds of Rhino 5 files and hundreds of “old” GH files, not including ~three thousand+ GH models I’ve posted to these forums over the last four years). I’m using a new laptop for R6 so am not concerned about running them on the same machine. My impression so far is that one should be prepared to give up R5 and just move forward to R6 exclusively, making life difficult for teams who aren’t all using the same version. It is disconcerting…

David, Thanks for the super-fast response.

I’ll look into RHI and Yak but, at this point, don’t know anything about them. Can you point me in the right direction?

One problem that is a little unique to my situation is that I need to install a Revit addin. That is a fairly ugly topic in its own right that most people on this forum don’t need to deal with, but do either RHI or Yak have the functionality to install files to another location? I may just separate the installs but that will be more complicated for my users.

Thanks, Mario

Nope, if you need to install different things for different apps at the same time, then your only real option is a custom installer. But be warned, writing your own installers can be a full time job.

I agree that installers are a pain; that’s why I’m revisiting this although I have gotten VisualStudio Setup to work in the past. I just took a look at both RHI and Yak and I’m having a hard time understanding how they will work with FoodForRhino. For that that delivery site I need some kind of executable (like a .msi file.) How would I use RHI or Yak to do that (assuming I am just doing the Rhino part?) Thanks, Mario

When I saw the new “Install” button on the missing plugins dialog in R6, I thought “that’s cool”…

missing

But no joy:

missing2

It is not a default function, plugin developers must include it.

You can check with TestPackageManager what plug-ins are already available through Yak - there aren’t that very many yet, as it is a very new thing (hence the test command behind which the package manager lives). Plug-in developers still need to create and upload the Yak package of their work. To see it in action with one plug-in that does already exist in the Yak-o-sphere do download and open https://github.com/mcneel/RhinoCycles/blob/rhino-6.0/conversion/rhino_full_shader.gh (and lets hope I didn’t botch anything).

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Yak is very new, only a few people have uploaded their plugins to it so far. However if you are a developer, it’s already a good way to distribute your stuff for Rhino6.

5 posts were split to a new topic: Yak, GhShaderNodes