8.2 Adding Command Panels to the GUI

Users are able to create new command panels using https://www.qt.io/download, then add those panels to the navigation XML. The finished panels will be displayed along with the standard Cubit panels and will launch python scripts when the user clicks ’Apply’ or ’Preview’. This tutorial will show the reader how to add a command panel that creates a "Brick with Hole".

8.2.1 Create a directory to store command panels

• Create a directory to store command panels

  • Each panel requires a subdirectory in this main directory

• Navigate to Tools/Options/Command Panels and point Cubit to his new directory.

Figure 486:

8.2.2 Create a directory for the new command panel

• Within the CustomPanels directory create a subdirectory for a new panel. The name is not important

• Eventually, this directory will contain the following files:

  • marker.txt - continas the navigation XML marker name

  • panel.ui - the Qt UI description file

  • apply.py - python script to run when "Apply" is clicked by the user

  • preview.py - [optional] python script to run when the user clicks "Preview"

    • Note: if this file is missing, the Preview button will automatically be removed

Figure 487:

8.2.3 Navigation Marker

• Open one of the navigation XML files

  • In the Cubit installation directory, find and open bin/xml/action-based-xml/GeometryCreateNavigation.xml

  • Insert your panel marker

    • Copy/paste the Brick NavigationNode and modify with your panel details:

Figure 489:

8.2.4 Create Panel UI

• Cubit is built using Qt 5 (see qt.io for more info)

• Qt Designer is required to make a .ui file

  • This is available as part of the standard Qt download OR

  • Available from Coreform upon request

• Use Qt Designer to create a new widget with two line edits (see the example below)

  • Tip: Remember to add a layout to the widget so it formats properly

• Save the file as panel.ui in the BrickWithHole directory we created earlier

Figure 491:

8.2.5 Panel UI Widgets

• Values for the panel widgets can be retrieved in Python for the following types of widgets:

  • Pick Widget (aka selection widget)

  • Line edit

  • Combo box

  • Radio button

  • Check box

  • Spin box (integers)

  • Double spin box (decimals)

  • Sliders

• Values are retrieved using the widget’s name, as specified in the panel.ui file.

8.2.5.1 Pick Widget

• Pick widgets are not part of the default Qt toolkit. They are created by the developers of Cubit to interact specifically with the graphics engine of Cubit

• To create a pick widget, use a line edit and give it a name following the pattern: pw<type>_...

  • For example, to create a volume pick widget, name the line edit something like "pwvolume_something".

  • Cubit will automatically convert the line edit to a pick widget when the UI is loaded

  • Note that the name IS case-sensitive

8.2.5.2 Pick Types

8.2.6 Apply Script

• With the panel UI complete we are now ready to implement the panel’s apply script.

• In the BrickWithHole directory, create a new file called ’apply.py" and add the following contents:

8.2.7 UserPanel Functions

• The following functions are available in the cubitgui.UserPanel class to get UI values in Python:

  • pick_widget_text(name) -> string

  • pick_widget_type(name) -> string

  • line_edit_text(name) -> string

  • combo_box_text(name) -> string

  • radio_button_is_checked(name) -> bool

  • check_box_is_checked(name) -> bool

  • spin_box_value(name) -> int

  • double_spin_box_value(name) -> float

  • slider_value(name) -> int

8.2.8 Preview Script

• To enable the Preview button in a custom panel, simply create the file preview.py in the panel’s directory and add the code to execute.

• Reset the panel and the preview button should appear.

• Note that not all commands in Cubit will have a preview option, so this button may have limited use.