Noob Ribbon Trouble

I taking first steps with custom components but I am having a problem:

The component is not loading into its specified ribbon tab: MyBase.New("TestComponent", "ghTest", "Test Component", "Paramsx", "Specialx")

I'm sure everything else follows the directives in the SDK help file and the bin path is added to the Developer settings path list. I'm sure I'm missing something basic.

Any help to get me going would be appreciated.

(Rhino 4 SR8, VS 2010, WIN7)

Attachments:

GhComponentBase.zip, 502 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on March 1, 2011 at 2:08pm

When I load your GHA file it adds a Paramsx tab and a Specialx panel with the blue icon in there.

I noticed you have copies of GH_IO.dll and rhinocommon.dll in your bin folder. This is very bad, you should remove the ones that are there and make sure your dll references are set to CopyLocal=False.

Where does the component end up if you load it?

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by john driskel on March 1, 2011 at 2:47pm

Thanks David,

Removing the reference files and setting the copy flags did the trick.

Permalink Reply by john driskel on March 1, 2011 at 3:14pm

I see in the developer settings dialog there is a toggle that will allow breakpoints to be hit. But this option does not seem to activate break point hits. Is there anything else I need to set to assist in stepping through the code?

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on March 1, 2011 at 3:30pm

In order to hit breakpoints you need to take the following steps:

1) in the _GrasshopperDeveloperSettings command, disable memory loading.

2) " " " add your bin folder to the Component search paths

3) make sure your projects builds as a gha, not a dll

4) Set your project debug start action to 'Project' and tell VS to start Rhino.exe

Some of these require manually editing the project files if you're using VS Express.

This comes up all the time, I started writing a little application that made these modifications automatically, but got stuck. I'll see if I can get unstuck otherwise I'll put the details in the Grasshopper SDK help file.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by john driskel on March 1, 2011 at 3:55pm

David I'm sorry that you have to explain every step but I'm not entirely clear:

In VS 2010 (Pro) I have three options: [1] Start project [2] Start external program [3]...

Do you mean from Step 4 above that I need to select the second option and specify the Rhino exe path? (If I do this and run the project no breakpoints are hit when I manipulate the component in the project Rhino.GH instance.)

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on March 1, 2011 at 4:20pm

Yes, you need to start Rhino4.exe (or Rhino.exe in the case of Rhino5) from here. When you start debugging it should start Rhino. Your breakpoints should go empty (red circles instead of red discs). Then as Grasshopper loads your GHA file, they should go solid again and you should hit breakpoints.

Actually, I just remembered, if you're using VS 2010 you can only debug in Rhino5.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by john driskel on March 1, 2011 at 4:43pm

Thanks, I'll give RH5 a try.

Am I right in asuming RH4 and RH5 can both be installed on the same machine without conflict?

Permalink Reply by john driskel on March 1, 2011 at 5:31pm

David,

On loading in RH5 it starts hitting breakpoints OK but then throws an error. Looks like it is looking for some hardcoded file path.

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on March 2, 2011 at 1:07am

Well yes, it tells me in what source code file and on what line (ideally) the error occured, since you don't have source for Grasshopper (I should hope :), it can't find the file.

It's odd it couldn't find any more information though as I do ship grasshopper.pdb (Programmer Data Base) with the installer which is supposed to help windows figure out exactly where something went wrong.

Is there an actual error message as well?

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on March 2, 2011 at 1:17am