Preset system

Blender does support advanced presets system right out of the box. The api take care of serialisation and unserialisation. Archipack does extend this api to provide thumbs and on screen seekable menu.

There are two kind of presets

  • Factory stored under /addon/presets/

  • User defined, stored under /user profile/presets/

Techically they are the same, but factory’s one are shipped with addon where user defined one will be stored on user prefs directory.

Requirements

In order to make objects “preset aware” one need 2 operators.

  • Preset menu Operator

  • Save / destroy preset Operator

Preset menu Operator

Requirements

  • MUST inherit from PresetMenuOperator

  • preset_subdir must match object PropertyGroup name, with archipack prefix

Implementation sample

class ARCHIPACK_OT_fence_preset_menu(PresetMenuOperator, Operator):
        bl_idname = "archipack.fence_preset_menu"
        bl_label = "Fence Presets"
        # Alter this using the base PropertyGroup class name (MUST use archipack_ prefix)
        preset_subdir = "archipack_fence"

Preset menu Operator may use a “preset_operator” option eg in draw a window / draw a door

  • preset_operator: string, bl_idname of operator to call after selection, in the form “category.operator”.

When not specified, default to create operator, using preset_subdir as operator bl_idname, eg: bpy.ops.archipack.fence

The operator handling preset operation must take “filename” as string input and handle loading of preset, where filename is a python preset absolute filename with path.

Implementation sample

row.operator("archipack.fence_preset_menu",
            text="Fence",
            icon_value=icons["fence"].icon_id
            ).preset_operator = "archipack.fence"

Save / Destroy preset operator

This operator does take care of rendering thumbs on save.

Requirements

  • MUST inherit from ArchipackPreset

  • You may add properties you dont want to save in presets in blacklist, HIDDEN and SKIP_SAVE property are ignored by default.

  • preset_menu MUST match menu preset operator class name.

Implementation sample

class ARCHIPACK_OT_fence_preset(ArchipackPreset, Operator):
        """Add a Fence Preset"""
        bl_idname = "archipack.fence_preset"
        bl_label = "Add Fence Preset"
        preset_menu = "ARCHIPACK_OT_fence_preset_menu"

        @property
        def blacklist(self):
                # Blacklist property you want store by name
                return ['n_parts', 'parts', 'manipulators', 'user_defined_path']

Call from object panel

Implementation sample

row = box.row(align=True)
row.operator("archipack.fence_preset_menu", text=bpy.types.ARCHIPACK_OT_fence_preset.bl_label)
row.operator("archipack.fence_preset", text="", icon='ZOOMIN')
row.operator("archipack.fence_preset", text="", icon='ZOOMOUT').remove_active = True

Create Operator

Requirements

  • MUST Inherits from ArchipackCreateTool to handle filename input

  • MUST call load_preset method.

Implementation sample

class ARCHIPACK_OT_fence(ArchipackCreateTool, Operator):
        bl_idname = "archipack.fence"
        bl_label = "Fence"
        bl_description = "Fence"
        bl_category = 'Archipack'
        bl_options = {'REGISTER', 'UNDO'}

        def create(self, context):
                m = bpy.data.meshes.new("Fence")
                o = bpy.data.objects.new("Fence", m)
                d = m.archipack_fence.add()
                context.scene.objects.link(o)
                o.select = True
                context.scene.objects.active = o
                self.load_preset(d)
                ...