Customizing Your Scripting Environment

There are a number of ways you can customize how you work with the Softimage Script Editor, including:

• Setting Scripting Preferences

• Setting Script Editor Preferences

• Using the Tools Development Environment

Setting Scripting Preferences

The Scripting preferences allow you to customize how Softimage logs information and which scripting language to use.

One of the interesting settings is the Show Command hyperlinks option. When you turn this on, the history log displays each logged command as a hyperlink which you can click on to launch the Edit Command property page for that command:

Setting Script Editor Preferences

The Script Editor Preferences allow you to change how you work with the Script Editor itself. You can:

• Change the font style and size of the text in the editing pane.

• Display line numbers, which is essential if you are trying to work with large scripts.

• Set a number of options related to tabbing and for automatically indenting blocks.

• Tell Softimage to automatically reload a script that has changed on disk when you are using an external editor.

• Customize how the Find and Replace features work in the Script Editor.

Using the Tools Development Environment

As of v5.0, there is a special layout that provides lots of support for developing tools and plug-ins for Softimage. You can access it from Views > Layouts > Tools Development Environment from the main menu bar.

The work area is basically divided in two: on the left you can toggle between your Softimage content, the PluginTree, the SDK Explorer, Netview and the Browser. On the right you can toggle between the six editing panes, display Netview or the Browser, all with a common history pane at the bottom.

Autodesk Softimage v7.5