Grasshopper 0.8.0007 available for download

An incremental update is available for download from the usual page.

A Zip file without installer is also available.

Changes and additions:

The slider popup editor now has fields for Name and Expression.
Digit scrollers now have a text input button for single click text input.
Digit scrollers and Sliders embedded in menus can now be double-clicked for text input (not everywhere yet, I'm working on this).
Text input fields for digit scrollers and slider now have OK and Cancel buttons.
Slider Expressions now use "x" as the expression variable instead of the Slider Name.

Fixes:

Adding and removing objects while large groups were present was slow, this is fixed.
Recursive curve explode didn't work, this is fixed.
Kinks in nurbscurves were sometimes ignored by Curve Explode, this is fixed.
Curve fillets wouldn't work on curve seams, this is fixed.
Expressions could not handle single opening bracket string literals, this is fixed.
Coarse mesh settings preset component didn't work, this is fixed.
Long paths in the Last Ditch Save dialog were sometimes only partially displayed, this is fixed.

This release is a bit pre-mature, but since it contains several important fixes I didn't want to delay any longer.

If you have existing files that contain sliders with expressions, they will most likely generate errors now (unless you named the slider "x"). It should still work, but please update the expressions and replace the slider name with the variable "x" everywhere.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by to] on March 8, 2011 at 5:45am

windows 7 ultimate 64bit regional setting : United Kingdom

Rhino 4 SR8 GH0.8.0007 working normal without problem

Rhino 5 64 bit build 0301 the behavior as described above

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on March 8, 2011 at 6:26am

Must be the framework for 64-bit (out on a limb here) because it works properly in the 32 bit version of rhino 5 but not the 64.

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on March 8, 2011 at 8:46am

Ok thanks guys for drilling down this deep. I'm currently completely unable to run Grasshopper on Rhino5 at all due to some unknown problem, but once we figured this out I can start testing this slider nightmare.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on March 8, 2011 at 10:32am

Ok, I can repeat this on Rhino5 64-bit. This is just w-e-i-r-d...

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on March 8, 2011 at 3:01pm

In fact, this is the weirdest bug I've ever come across in my long years of programming. Utterly ungraspable. Initially I could reproduce the problem every time, but whenever I tried any kind of runtime logging it disappeared. Now it refuses to happen at all, even with the original code.

So, the bad news is I have no idea whether I fixed it or not. We'll see when I next release.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by taz on March 8, 2011 at 3:57pm

I see my work here is done...

If I discovered a new type of bug, do I get to name it?

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on March 8, 2011 at 4:16pm

64-bit's the devil's work...... so Tasmanian Devil would be quite suitable :))

Permalink Reply by Evan C on March 8, 2011 at 12:00am

Great! Always exciting to see that "new release" notification when I start up GH! :D - thanks especially for "reverse"

I haven't had any crashes from the number slider component - but I do wonder what is the advantage of the "rollers"? I much prefer the old style slider pop-up window without the scrollers.

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on March 8, 2011 at 4:09am

Hi Evan,

can you tell me why you preferred the old window? The digit scroller (rollers) are something I'm experimenting with as a new number input concept so I need detailed information as to what can be improved.

The two features I was hoping to add to the default windows numeric scroller are:

1) expressions.

2) no step-sizes.

You can enter any expression that evaluates to a number in the text input box of the scroller instead of just strict numerals. This was not possible before.

There is no more step size when you scroll up or down. Meaning the number doesn't always change with the same amount, and quite possibly an amount that you don't want. If I allow you to drag every individual digit there is no need for a scrolling step-size.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Barry Mair on March 8, 2011 at 6:43am

Hi David.

Firstly I love your number slider scrollers and expression input.

I have been "playing" with it frequently today, when I first change the number of decimal places, and set a value and click OK, the value reverts to zeros for the change in decimal places. (changing from 3 to 6 results in the last 3 reverting to 0)

From that point, re-editing the value works perfectly.

Rhino 4 SR 8 and Rhino 5 1-March

GH 0.8.0007

Win 7 32 Bit.

Permalink Reply by Evan C on March 9, 2011 at 2:39am

Hey David, thanks for your reply....

1) about expressions - cool! didn't realize, but that should come in handy....

2) as for step sizes, I suppose it never really bothered me before...

I had to go reinstall the old version to realize why this was bothering me - in 0.8.0004 and previous versions, I don't think I ever once used the up/down arrows to enter a number. In normal use, I would double-click on the number slider, and then click in the text box start typing... and (significantly) use TAB to get to the next entry field. Workflow-wise this was very smooth, and a really fast way to enter all the data precisely.

In the new version, you now have to double-click on the scroller to get the text-input field, then hit enter, then double click the next scroller to enter a precise value... you can't switch to the next field with tab.

I know this is a pretty minor point, but it is a lot of additional clicking compared to the old versions.

I'm no UI designer, but I think I perceive the scrollers as more complicated because now there are more "moving parts" - mentally it now seems like I need to twirl a wheel for each digit, as opposed to seeing just one entry field for each value...

what's that old quote?

“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away" --Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Oh, and not to dump on the sliders too much - thanks again for your continuing hard work! Grasshopper has helped me land my last 2 jobs!

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on March 9, 2011 at 3:27am

Hi Evan,

Having used the scrollers, especially the stand alone scroller, I see their benefit. I never use them to enter a value with precision, I still use the text entry for this, but to change the max value from 1000 to 2000 they are ideal.

I still feel that a further improvement could be made by using a text entry like "max=300" when you enter text by double clicking on the slider similar to the panel="Hello World!" from the keyword search field.

I've brought this to David's attention here: http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/new-slider-comments.

What do you think to this approach?