Skelescript Usage and Installation

To install Skelescripts and the rest of the Kung Fu Tools, follow the instructions provided with the kungfu_tools.html file that came from the zip. When you are finished, you should have a command group (seen when configuring menus/keyboard shortcuts) labeled: 'David Ikeda'. Assign the plugins under that group to the keyboard shortcuts and/or menu items of your choice.

Skelescript currently comes with 2 layout plugins (Cvt Skelescripts and SKS Preview) and 2 modeler plugins (SKS Editor and SKS Manager).

SKS Editor

This plugin opens up the Skelescript editor used to create a new Skelescript or modify an existing one. To use it, simply select a skelegon in modeler and activate SKS Editor . If no script exists for the skelegon, a new one will be created and a blank text box will be displayed for you to write new code. If a script already exists for the selected skelegon, the existing code will be displayed in the editor for you to modify. To provide visual feedback, once you apply a skelescript to a skelegon, the skelegon will turn brown for its sketch color. If you activate SKS editor and hit the Delete button, it will remove the script and revert the skelegon back to its original sketch color.

Here's a description of each control that appears while in the Skelescript editor:

Go To Line - Click on this and enter a line number to jump to the specified line. Any time there is an error in your script, the skelescript interpreter will report the line number at which the error occured. This feature can be a quick way to jump to those erroneous lines to see what happened.

Import Text - Imports a text file into the editor.

Reload Text - Once you choose a text file to import into the editor using the Import Text button, you can reload the previously selected file with this feature. This allows you to write skelescript code in an external editor, import the code into the editor, then quickly reload the code whenever you make updates.

Export Text - Exports a text file of the existing code.

Delete - Removes the script from the current skelegon.

Continue - Stores the script into the skelegon and exits the editor.



SKS Manager

This plugin allows you to manage a list of all the existing skelescripts in an object. To use it, just activate SKS Manager. You'll then see a list of all skelescripts in the object. To edit any specific skelescript, simply double-click its name on the list (you can also hit the enter key or click on the edit button below). This plugin is useful for quickly spotting and editing existing scrips in an object. It also sorts the list based on priority levels, so you can see the precise execution order of your scripts.



Cvt Skelescripts

This layout plugin works just like the Cvt Skelegons tool. The only difference is that it will also interpret any scripts that exist in the skelegons. To use it, simply open a skelescript object in layout by sending it from modeler or loading it from a file. Then, simply hit Cvt Skelescripts and watch it go. If you have any errors in your script, the interpreter will halt and notify you of the error.

Note: feel free to use Cvt Skelescripts as a new general-purpose skelegon converter. When converting simple skelegons without scripts, the tool has the same functionality as the native Cvt Skelegons tool.

Skelescript Preview

This layout plugin works a lot like LS Commander without the automatic code-generation. It allows you to quickly sketch code and preview what it does. While the main purpose is to allow you to experiment with skelescript code, you can also save and load scripts by using the Import Text and Export Text buttons (see SKS Editor above for details on the buttons). Testing and debugging code is a lot easier with Skelescript Preview than with Cvt Skelegons and SKS Editor, so you should try to test as much of your code as possible in Skelescript Preview before embedding the code into skelegons.

Execute - Executes the existing script. The item that was selected when SKS Preview was started will be the item that is considered to be the current skelescript item (returned by the me function).

Quit - Quits Skelescript Preview. The existing code will be stored and remembered for the next time you run Skelescript Preview.



The zip also contains sample skelescript objects. To view the scripts used for these objects, fire up SKS Manager and view the scripts starting from the highest priority scripts to the lowest priority scripts. This way, you can view the scripts in their natural execution order from start to finish.

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