What can McNeel do to improve your development?

If McNeel did one thing to improve your effectiveness as a plug-in developer, what would it be?

Again, just curious…

Thanks,

– Dale

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Improve documentation. It is now scattered over many places:

http://4.rhino3d.com/5/rhinocommon/


https://github.com/dalefugier/SampleCsCommands/

C++ headers

to name a few.

It would be very nice if there is a comprehensive development manual for C++, .NET and Python which covers the basics of commands, geometry etc. and the advanced topics like display pipelines, rendering and custom objects.

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allow developers to sell plugins bundled with rhino - price break points starting at 2+, and no yearly quotas.

I agree that the RhinoCommon wiki has become somewhat of a mess. I’ll get together with @stevebaer and @Alain and see if we organize it a bit better.

For you personally, having a “Programming Rhino,” the Rhino version of Petzold’s Programming Windows, would be beneficial? Or, would a primer, similar to those written for Rhino.Python and RhinoScript be sufficient?

We already do this. Just become a Rhino reseller.

http://www.rhino3d.com/reseller

Primer is good for folks getting started, you will get a lot of return on that. Me personally, I really could do with “Programming Rhino”, to really get to the bottom of things. I understand that is a monumental task though.

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It is. And as soon as you’re close to finishing, the information (or some of it) is out-of-date. But this isn’t your problem. :wink:

I appreciate the feedback.

For my plugins, here’s some improvements in Rhino that would help me.

More history based storage like light weight extrusions.
Examples would be sweeps or lofts.

Also for extrusions a common profile definition share across multiple instances.

Thanks,

Jon

Do you have a link to the oem page - the last I heard I needed to order 200 units.

Regards

According to the following page, you need to order at least 2 copies…

http://www.rhino3d.com/reseller/napa

But you could contact the appropriate person (on the Reseller) page for all the details.

Thanks for the feedback, John. It would like you need additional features in our toolkits.

You can store any kind of geometry on a CRhinoHistory object, including light extrusion objects. So I might need more information on this.

Is this related to history and extrusion? Please clarify.

I’m going to need some help on what you are looking for and why.

Thanks!

– Dale

I have seen the “Missing

documentation” text a couple of times on RhinoCommon SDK pages.

Other than that would it be possible to add some sort of navigation, the way RhinoCommon SDK has (the one with drop down menus on the left), to wiki.mcneel pages? Sometimes I get surprise what can be found on wiki.mcneel, without me being able to find that page from on /wiki.mcneel.com/developer/home page.

Steve already explained to me, there will be no release for Win XP, still I just felt like saying it nevertheless:
I am not able to use the current Rhino Script compiler due to limitations of my operating system - it does not support .NET 4.5.

Do you have an example of this?

So, having “RhinoCommon” on the sidebar would be helpful? How about just bookmarking the RhinoCommon home page?

Not much we can do about .NET 4.5 not working on 13-year old Windows XP - sorry.

[quote=“dale, post:13, topic:10491”]
Do you have an example of this?[/quote]

Out of my mind, I remember of GetCameraExtents method.
There are more of these.

I have just noticed the Sitemap. That’s the navigation I was talking about. Sorry.
Just a small addition, looks like “Grasshopper” has been missing from the menu on the left.

[quote=“dale, post:13, topic:10491”]
Not much we can do about .NET 4.5 not working on 13-year old Windows XP - sorry.[/quote]

Looks like it is possible to make one for .NET 4 (Win XP supports .NET 4), but Steve simply can’t make it, with all the work he has at Mcneel.

I’ll second “completing the RhinoCommon SDK documentation”, although I don’t have any specific examples of missing documentation that’s annoyed me off the top of my head. (I know it’s happened, though.) More sophistication in the toolbar installation process would be great, and I’d still love for RhinoDoc.EndSaveDocument to work the way it seems like it should.

Another thing that would be very nice is if custom grips would actually work in RhinoCommon.

I like to develop script via rscript or rpython but for me would be great if Mcneel could organize courses on how to use rhinocommon maybe with C#…

Please add proper IntelliSense to the Python editor. :rocket:

c.

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Hello Dale,
First I want to say that for the most part it is a pleasure to develop for Rhino! I’ve learned a lot with the examples you provide in the wiki and the Rhinocommon SDK is quite useful.
I would also like to see the SDK documentation completed as there are missing descriptions all over the place. Also, adding code examples as you have in the Rhinoscript help would be great. I know there are some in there, but would be great for this to exist in all documented elements.

(to pick out a few random ones…obviously they are almost self explanatory, but would be nice to just have the short description and usage sample).
http://4.rhino3d.com/5/rhinocommon/?topic=html/M_Rhino_Display_RhinoViewport_ClientToScreen_1.htm
http://4.rhino3d.com/5/rhinocommon/?topic=html/T_Rhino_DocObjects_HatchPattern.htm

I also noticed that the Event Model is pretty loose. For example, EndOpenDocument fires several times as the document is opening. Should this not fire once when the document is actually opened and finished loading any resources? I eventually got around the issue waiting for Rhino to become Idle, but I wonder if the EndOpenDocument event should be fired so many times for a reason?

Finally, I would like to request some information on licensing and the best practices, or options out there for plugin licensing. I know that this has implications beyond Rhino, but as tied to Rhino, it would be good to know what our options are (for those of us who have never touched upon the subject). What are the devices that facilitate licensing (Zoo vs license key vs license server?).

All the best,
Luis

The Rhino.Python editor has “IntelliSense.” What is “proper” IntelliSense?