Custom keyboard shortcuts for functions

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 15, 2016 at 5:42am

Although you can find the menu on the Grasshopper window by iterating over the controls in Grasshopper.Instances.DocumentEditor.Controls, and, once found, you can insert menu items into it, the Grasshopper window does have its own shortcut handling logic. Just assigning a shortcut combo to a new menu item won't do the trick.

The steps needed for add menu items to GH and have them respond to shortcuts are:

• Get a hold of the document editor form once it exists.
• Find the main menu control on the form.
• Insert your own items.
• Handle the GH_DocumentEditor.AggregateShortcutMenuItems event and add your menu items to the list.

To be honest I've never tested this...

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 15, 2016 at 6:01am

But it does work, even if it isn't particularly elegant.

Attachments:

• custommenu.gh, 3 KB

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 15, 2016 at 6:03am

Btw. the reason it's so complicated is because Grasshopper has centralised shortcut preferences. Now, looking back, it's clear that this could have been handled better, but we're stuck with the current system.

Note how the new item is included in the preferences:

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 15, 2016 at 9:54am

The field is static, meaning it is shared amongst all instances of that class. When a script file is compiled, the resulting type is stored inside a dictionary and if the exact same script occurs somewhere else it'll retrieve the type from there, rather than compiling anew. So static fields are shared amongst all C# component instances that run the exact same code.

If you change the script slightly (even just whitespace), it will compile again and you'll get a second menu item. 

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 15, 2016 at 9:58am

Incidentally you could also add buttons to the toolbar, or even add additional toolbars to the main form if you'd feel so inclined. None of that will allow you to use shortcut keys, but it might still be an interesting alternative for quick-access tools.

Permalink Reply by Ramon van der Heijden on November 15, 2016 at 10:55pm

Thanks so much David.

That is working beautifully! I had a bit of a challenge getting it to work in my plugin, but adding the lines below seems to make it work. Is this how you would go about it as well?

public override GH_LoadingInstruction PriorityLoad()
{
Instances.CanvasCreated += RegisterMenuItems;
return GH_LoadingInstruction.Proceed;
}

protected void RegisterMenuItems(GH_Canvas canvas)
{
Instances.CanvasCreated -= RegisterMenuItems;
GH_DocumentEditor documentEditor = Instances.DocumentEditor;

if (documentEditor != null)
{
this.CreateTidyMenu(documentEditor);
}
}

Thanks again!

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 16, 2016 at 4:19am

I'd forgotten about the CanvasCreated event. Yes, this is certainly the best way to do it I think.