Hi -
Run Containers, find “GH2 Icon” in the Panels list to the right, and drag-and-drop in a container on the left.
-wim
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Hi @Gijs (and Wim!)
Yesterday I cleaned up all my macros since they were all strange and messy from making some duplicates of the buttons. (And since Rhino has a messy button-hidden-macro halfbread sollution going on behind the curtains.)
And today they were all back to whack. Even though I know for sure that I saved the toolbar a few times after I did this, and that the toolbar layout looks fine, except for a few buttons who lost their icons. Probably due to the lack of, or renamed macros or something.
So now I dread fixing the macros again. But if this piece of fine engineering is going to hum like intended then it needs to be clean and tidy.
I also see that Rhino generates these strange “unnamed” macros somethimes, and if I go in and edit one of those macros then they don’t have a name, and if I just click OK, then Rhino stops me and states that I can not save a macro that doesn’t have a name… (Even though Rhino did this and even have a way to handle how to show macros that has no name.)
I hope this shines some more light on this odd toolbar mess.
Oh… and the other thing I did was to move a few icons to an extra toolbar that is in the same .rui:
I just fixed that, saved and reopened Rhino and now it is back… I’ll check some more.
OK, so I see that if I copy a button then Rhino also makes a dupicate macro, is that right?
I see how that makes sense if we want to edit the new copy and keep the original intact, but I think that is causing a lot of trouble too.
The thing is that within the button editor I can’t see that the button actually links to a macro, that part is hidden from us as now a button just appears as how stuff worked in Rhino 7 and before, but you have kept the new macro engine running partly hidden from us. I don’t think that’s a great idea, this stuff needs a better UI unless other users are going to have to learn this the same way as I am.
The thing is I don’t want to be bothered with macros. But I see how they are clever in a way, if they worked right. So I guess we need to sit down and work this through. Adding a macro to a button is fine, but just making a macro when we make a button, and not show the link to it when we edit that button isn’t. And we should be able to reassign a new macro to that button too, as it IS linked to one… We just can’t see that link, nor change it.
And I would like to be asked, when I duplicate a button, if I want it linked to the same macro, or make a duplicate macro for this new button.
Edit:
I did some more editing and changed all the macro names that was listed as unnamed, but they converted back again… Toolbar buttons are OK, but the unnamed macro names are stubborn. So I thought maybe it is a naming thing, so I changed some and saved and restarted Rhino and those stuck:
Now I’ll check the rest.
Edit 2:
And for some strange reason now that worked too. I took 3-4 each time between saves and restarts. And THAT doesn’t make me smarter, but at least now it’s done, for the time being at least 
Hi Jørgen,
Your last post about sums up what I found when working with macros/macro editor many moons ago. I stopped messing with it quite awhile back, partly because more of my time lately has been spent working on things physical (car repair/restoration) rather than things virtual (working in/on Rhino). You might have noticed my presence here has diminished somewhat.
I basically made a couple of rules for myself back then which I see may still apply:
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Don’t duplicate buttons - always start from scratch. Otherwise you are going to end up with endless macro duplicates, probably many of which are not assigned - and there is no indication of which.
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Don’t edit existing button macros via the button editor - always edit them via the macro editor.
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I found it’s better to create a new macro in the macro editor and give it a distinct name and an image, then create a new button and assign the macro you just created to the button. As opposed to making a new button first and pasting in the macro in the button editor and adding the image there.
My macro library is still a mess, but I basically haven’t wanted to spend any more time trying to clean it up. According to your experience, it is possible that some deleted macros may come back. That may have to do with whether you saved your .rui or not. There still appears to be some bugs with saving an .rui and that .xml “difference” file that is created/modified/deleted when you edit something in the .rui.
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Hi Mitch! Yes, you not being presence here as much has absolutely been noticed. And I miss your always literate and positive (and sometimes filled with rough love of the finest grade).
Thanks for replying and summarizing your findings and preferred workflow. I hope McNeel puts some real effort into this as customizing Rhino is a super power.
We removed this early on in Rhino 8, since it caused so much trouble.
As Mitch pointed out, creating your macros first, and adding them to buttons second, is a safe(r) way to do this. When creating a duplicate of a button, once you make an edit, it is a different macro these macros need to have a unique name. I think Rhino 7 was not very different in that aspect, you would often see buttons that had names like Macro-33, etc.
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My biggest trouble here is that the button editor “acts” like it isn’t linked to a macro. It appears to be just a button that has script info, or macro stuff, in it. There is no indication that the stuff on the button actually is a separate macro with a name.
So my request here is that you just clean that UX up. It shouldn’t take much and keep in mind that the stuff you do here, now, will probably move on to R9, unless you already are working on a new approach again.
It will most likely have one though. You will have to go looking for it among the “Macro XXX” entries. One-by-one.
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Yes, I know, and I have edited them and renamed them and it works fine now.
But since they are linked under-the-hood it would be nice if the toolbar button editor just showed the name of the macro at least. Doesn’t that make sense?
I did manage to delete the wrong macro in my clean up more than once already.
I am really not trying to be difficult or dumb here, I just wish for this stuff to be more intuitive both for new users and the future, older me
Of course it does. I asked for this - or any other system to be able to tell which macros were linked with which buttons - more than a year ago.
This is why I now do all macro creation and editing in the macro library editor. Then I make sure that the name is what I want, and generally it is the same as the button text, so I can see what the macro name is in the toolbar button editor as well.
You’re not being either. The system still has a lot of usability problems for both beginners as well as advanced users. Happy that you have picked up the flag and are running with it.
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@gustojunk just in case you haven’t seen this, but this seems to be the core workaround to a stable toolbar. Make the stuff in Macros and link them in buttons in the toolbar. NEVER copy a toolbar button. NEVER.
By the way, I ‘use’ mine stored on dropbox so it is updated on both the office and at home every time I save it. And save it EVERY time you change something. The xml file that stores the changes done between saves is wonky and faulty and should be avoided (and replaced with a “Do you want to save the changes made to the changed toolbars?” dialog upon closing Rhino.)
OT Sidenote:
I say 'use' because...
…we have not moved on to Rhino 8 for project use yet. And won’t until I can use it with out odd crashes, strange prints or other odd behavior. R8 has some great tools I use, so it is absolutely in the toolbox, and I have scripts that can do stuff in R8 that would never be possible for me to develop in R7 because of Python 3’s pip installation of third party plugins. I would love to move on to R8 fulltime and forget about R7, and I am sure well get there eventually. Maybe not until R9, but still. It has lots of good stuff going on and we have been through worse releases of upgrades in softwares before than this Somethimes taking the right step forward is the wrong step in short term bliss… but it is still the right step forward. Growth is pain.
Another side note:
IF you choose to make a toolbar-button without making a macro first, then make sure you name the toolbar button with the final name you want to use. Because this will make a macro with that name in the background, and this will save you time in the future if you need to edit or clean up the macros. (Because the toolbar button editor doesn’t show what macro is linked to this button)
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