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Common Tasks
Unless otherwise noted, all functions and classes mentioned here are
directly accessible from the 
Sketch package. E.g. the CreateRGBColor function is accessible either with:
import Sketch
blue = Sketch.CreateRGBColor(0, 0, 1)
or
from Sketch import CreateRGBColor
blue = CreateRGBColor(0, 0, 1)
Creating Objects
Creating new objects for a drawing, usually takes three steps:
Create the object. This is described in this section.Set graphics properties like fill color or line width.
This is described 
#N19below .Insert the object into the document
Primitives
Rectangles
Rectangle(trafo)
This function creates a rectangle object described by trafo.
trafo is an affine transformation (represented by a devguide-7.htmla transformation object  that transforms the
unit square into the desired rectangle.
Transformation objects are created by the functions devguide-7.html#N3Trafo , devguide-7.html#N4Scale , devguide-7.html#N6Rotation  and
devguide-7.html#N5Translation . 
In the most common case where you want to create a rectangle with a
specific width and height at a specific position (x, y) (the position of
the lower left corner of the rectangle) and edges parallel to the edges
of the page, you could create the rectangle like this:
Rectangle(Trafo(width, 0, 0, height, x, y))
or like this
Rectangle(Translation(x, y)(Scale(width, height)))
Lines and Curves
All line and curve-objects in Skencil are instances of the PolyBezier class. Each PolyBezier object consists of one
or more paths with each path consisting of one or more line or
bézier segments.
To create a PolyBezier object you have to first create the paths
and then the 
PolyBezier instance. A path is created by starting
with an empty path returned by the 
devguide-8.html#N3CreatePath  function
and then appending line- and curve-segments to construct the path. How
paths are constructed is covered in detail in the 
devguide-8.htmlcorresponding section in the developer's guide .
Once you have constructed your paths, you create the PolyBezier instance with:
PolyBezier(path_tuple)
The argument path_tuple must be a tuple of paths. If you have just
one path 
path, you can use the expression (path,).
For an example, see the sample script create_star.py.
Text
Skencil's text capabilities are still very simple. A text object consists
of just one line of text in one font and size, hence the class is called
SimpleText:
SimpleText(trafo, text)
Create a simple text object with the text string text. The
position and orientation is given by 
trafo, a devguide-7.htmla transformation object .
For an example, see the sample scripts create_text.py.
Compound Objects
Groups
Creating a normal group is very simple. First, you have to construct a
list of the objects to be contained in the group. Then you just call the
constructor:
Group(children)
Create a group object with the objects in the list children as
children. The children must not be contained in a document.
If you want to create a group of objects that are already contained in
the document, the easiest way is to make sure those objects are selected
and then to call the document method 
GroupSelected.
Like all document methods this method takes care of undo itself.
Inserting the Object into the Document
You can insert an object into the document with this document method:
Insert(object)Insert the object object into the document. The object
becomes the topmost object in the current layer. The selection
is set to just this object.
Manipulating Objects
Once you have created a graphics object or you have a reference to an
object in the document, perhaps from the selection, you can manipulate
them in various ways. All methods that modify an object in place return
undo information which you have to pass to the document's 
AddUndo method if your script is an usersguide-6.html#N4advanced script .
Transformations
Objects have two methods that allow you move and transform them.
Translate(offset)
Move the object by offset. offset must be a devguide-5.htmlpoint object . For an example, see the sample
scripts 
abut_horizontal.py and abut_vertical.py.
Transform(trafo)
Apply the affine transformation trafo to the object.
Changing Object Properties
Properties define how an object looks, i.e. they define the fill and
line styles and fonts.
The fill is defined by a pattern object. There are several kinds of
pattern types:
EmptyPatternThe EmptyPattern is a predefined object that means the
object is not filled.
SolidPattern(color)Return a solid pattern object for color color. The solid
pattern fills the object uniformly.
color has to be a color object which can be created with
the following function:
CreateRGBColor(red, green,
blue)
which returns a color object for the color given by the RGB
components 
red, green, blue which are floats
in the range 0 - 1.
There are also some predefined color objects for some standard
colors. They are attributes of the 
StandardColors object,
e.g. 
StandardColors.blue is blue.
There are more pattern like gradients which I haven't documented yet.
To set the properties of an object, call this method
SetProperties(keyword_arguments)Set the properties described by the keyword arguments and return
undo information. The accepted keyword arguments are
fill_patternThe fill pattern. It can be of any pattern type.
fill_transformA boolean (i.e. 0 or 1) that defines whether the pattern
is transformed as well if the object is transformed.
line_patternThe pattern for the outline. Must be either
EmptyPattern or a SolidPattern. If
it's 
EmptyPattern, no outline is drawn.
line_widthThe line width as a float in pt.
line_capThe cap style. One of CapButt, CapRound or
CapProjecting. These constants are defined in
Sketch.const
line_joinThe join style. One of JoinMiter, JoinRound or
JoinBevel. These constants are defined in
Sketch.const
line_dashesThe dash-pattern as a tuple of floats. The items of the
tuple define the dashes and gaps terms of the
line-width. The number of items in the tuple should be
even.
line_arrow1line_arrow2The arrow heads. Arrow heads are objects you can create
with the function 
Arrow.
fontThe font for a text object. The value must be a font
object which you can get with the function 
GetFont(name) where name is
the PostScript-name of the font.
font_sizeThe size of the font in pt.
Managing the Selection
In Skencil 0.6.x, the selection is managed by the document object. You
can use these document methods to query and change the selection:
HasSelection()Return true if the selection is not empty.
CountSelected()Return the number of selected objects.
SelectedObjects()Return a list containing the currently selected objects.
CurrentObject()Return the currently selected object if exactly one object is
selected, return None otherwise.
SelectNone()Make the selection empty.
SelectObject(object[,
mode])If mode is SelectSet, make object the selected
object, otherwise, if 
mode is SelectAdd, add
object to the selection. mode defaults to
SelectSet.
object may be a single object or a list of objects.
DeselectObject(object)Remove object from the selection.
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