Changelog for developers

[Elisa]

Dear SAMSON's developers,

The new version of SAMSON is looking very good! I would like to port our plugin as soon as possible, is there a changelog for developers somewhere?

Thank you and best regards,

Elisa

[OneAngstrom]

Thank you Elisa! We're excited to see your SAMSON Element coming!

We'll add it soon to the doc, but from the developers point there's not much change:

• Layers are now folders (with more functionality). You can essentially do a replace all (with case): Layer -> Folder and layer -> folder (even inside words). This should take care of most cases. Then, you should replace SAMSON::getActiveFolder() (which was SAMSON::getActiveLayer()) by SAMSON::getActiveDocument(), because there is no notion of an active layer anymore (since we can directly add to the document).
• Editor property widgets are now dockable, so you should remove SAMSON::addWidget and SAMSON::removeWidget from your editors.
• If you used Paths, the API has changed to make it more convenient. Instead of passing an array of SBPosition3, you pass a SBVector<SBVector<SBPosition3>> (a pointer to a vector of frame data, where frame data is a lislt of positions for that frame.
• To store persisting pointers to nodes, you should always use SAMSON pointers (SBPointer, SBPointerList, SBPointerIndexer).

In doubt, the easiest is to use the SAMSON Generator.

Best,

Stephane

[Elisa]

Many thanks! Is there a change with respect the Qt version used? I guess 5.9.3 will still be compatible, but I would prefer to use the same one as you are using.

Also, I don't see the option to install the 0.8.0 SDK on SAMSON-Developer-Setup.exe, is it not available yet?

Best regards,

Elisa

[OneAngstrom]

Not yet, but soon :-). This version (0.8.0) is still with Qt 5.9.3, but we'll move soon to a more recent version (which will be indicated in the doc). We're setting up a different workflow that will now allow us to update SAMSON much more frequently to better handle user and developer feedback.

[Elisa]

I have seen it is already available! There is also another binary in the installation now, SAMSON-Core-Console.exe that seems to execute Samson from the console, which for debugging might be better, is ok to use this one for debug? Are there any other differences?

Also on installation I get an error:
"Error we cannot find any trace of installation of SAMSON, exiting"
The SDK has been installed into the folder, and I can run SAMSON-Core.exe (debug) but Qt 5.9.3 doesn't seem to be detected and it crashes. 0.7.0 SDK works fine, so I think I have my Path and environmental variables set correctly. Do you have any ideas what could be the problem?

[Jocelyn]

Did you downloaded again the new SAMSON-Developer-Setup.exe? Im not sure it works with SDK 0.8.0..

[Jocelyn]

An yes you can use the SAMSON-Core-Console.exe to debug, it should work.

[Elisa]

Yes! That was the problem, I didn't realize there was also a 0.8.1 version of SAMSON. I got my plugin working now. Is there a way we can recover docking Editors? My app has quite a few and it is a bit annoying to have to select them from the drop-down list everytime.

Thanks!

[OneAngstrom]

Hi Elisa, yes we're releasing a new version every two weeks now (the changelog will be published). Minor version updates are backward compatible, so you don't necessarily have any code changes to do, but just to recompile since the ABI might change.

I didn't get your question about recovering docking editors and drop-down lists. If you want you can favorite editors by looking for them in the top-right searchbox.

[Elisa]

The question about docking editors is that before we could have a bar with all the editors. Now I have to click a menu and select them from a drop down list, I would like to have them again on a bar, as we have quite a few and need to switch between them often. I will test the favorite editors option, to see if it can replace the bar.

Thanks!

[DmitriyMarin]

@elisa The favorites allows for up to 6 actions be available in one click. If there are more than 6 editors you add into the favorites then only the first 5 will be accessible in one click, the rest will be arranged together in a menu of the 'More' button. If you want we can increase the number of favorites accessible on one click to 9.

The other way is to create a widget (e.g. through an App) with buttons for all your editors, certain widgets are now dockable in SAMSON.

[Elisa]

@DmitriyMarin Thanks for the suggestions! We need to test first the new UI a bit more, maybe 5 favorites is enough, and we can also implement shortcuts. The widget option might be the simplest way, though, in case we add one or two more editors.

[DmitriyMarin]

@elisa You can also specify an appropriate category for your editors such that they could be found not only in the All category.

[DmitriyMarin]

We have published the changelog for SAMSON SDK. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them!

[Elisa]

Thanks, that is very helpful!

Something I don't see, perhaps I am missing it, did you expose the translation/rotation editors so we could customize them? (https://forum.samson-connect.net/topic/107/applying-rotations-to-my-custom-model)

[Stephane]

Hi Elisa, this is coming to 0.8.5 hopefully (or 0.8.6 at most), so in about two weeks or one month (we're doing a release every two weeks now). Precisely, we are now exposing a SBGControllerMove class (the one visible in the Move editor), so that developers can use this 3D widget for other applications. (0.8.4 should be released today).

[Elisa]

That is great!! Looking forward to it!