Add hovered property path to python context. #107280

Josh Maros · 2023-04-24T04:07:12+02:00

Josh Maros commented

2023-04-24 04:07:12 +02:00

Problem Addressed:

I frequently find myself adding small fade in/fade out animations to many different properties. I would like to make an addon that does this with a simple shortcut. I want it to work like the built-in Insert Keyframe operator, where I can hover over a property, press a button, and have the animation inserted. However, I currently have to resort to half-functional hacks to find what property is currently under the cursor. This would be much simpler if there were some way to get the currently hovered property using the Python interface.

Proposed Solution:

Add a property context.hovered_property which gives a string containing the path of the property currently under the user's mouse.

Alternative Solutions:

The property could possibly be placed somewhere else.

Limitations:

No known limitations.

Other comments:

Please let me know if any of the changes I made to make this work are undesirable. Namely, I had to modify bContextDataResult to be able to carry strings in addition to RNA pointers and lists.

# Problem Addressed: I frequently find myself adding small fade in/fade out animations to many different properties. I would like to make an addon that does this with a simple shortcut. I want it to work like the built-in Insert Keyframe operator, where I can hover over a property, press a button, and have the animation inserted. However, I currently have to resort to half-functional hacks to find what property is currently under the cursor. This would be much simpler if there were some way to get the currently hovered property using the Python interface. # Proposed Solution: Add a property `context.hovered_property` which gives a string containing the path of the property currently under the user's mouse. # Alternative Solutions: The property could possibly be placed somewhere else. # Limitations: No known limitations. # Other comments: Please let me know if any of the changes I made to make this work are undesirable. Namely, I had to modify `bContextDataResult` to be able to carry strings in addition to RNA pointers and lists.

Josh Maros commented

2023-04-24 04:09:24 +02:00

@ideasman42 Would you be able to review this?

Brecht Van Lommel requested changes 2023-04-28 17:58:40 +02:00

Brecht Van Lommel left a comment

The functionality seems useful. But it leaks memory, while it does free the string in the Python API code this can be used in other places too and each place having to free this manually is not the right solution.

Maybe instead add a CTX_DATA_TYPE_PROPERTY that stores a PropertyRNA *prop and int index, and then do the conversion to string in the Python API code?

It may also be more convenient to return this as a tuple id, data_path, index instead, since that is also what keyframe_insert needs.

I think perhaps just property would be a better name as well, since we don't use hovered anywhere else even though the screen/area/region behave similarly.

The functionality seems useful. But it leaks memory, while it does free the string in the Python API code this can be used in other places too and each place having to free this manually is not the right solution. Maybe instead add a `CTX_DATA_TYPE_PROPERTY` that stores a `PropertyRNA *prop` and `int index`, and then do the conversion to string in the Python API code? It may also be more convenient to return this as a tuple `id, data_path, index` instead, since that is also what `keyframe_insert` needs. I think perhaps just `property` would be a better name as well, since we don't use `hovered` anywhere else even though the screen/area/region behave similarly.

👍 1

Nika Kutsniashvili commented

2023-04-28 20:16:07 +02:00

Can't tell you how many times I've needed this feature when writing add-ons. Thank you Josh for doing it

👍 1

Josh Maros force-pushed context_hovered_property from c44646193a to dc8a75ed77

2023-04-30 05:31:45 +02:00

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Josh Maros requested review from Brecht Van Lommel 2023-04-30 05:34:51 +02:00

Josh Maros commented

2023-04-30 05:35:27 +02:00

I agree with and have incorporated your feedback. What do I need to do to add this functionality to the docs?

Josh Maros commented

2023-05-18 07:23:06 +02:00

@brecht Since it has been a while I am realizing it may not have pinged you when I re-requested your review. Are you still available to provide feedback?

Brecht Van Lommel approved these changes 2023-05-26 20:00:01 +02:00

Brecht Van Lommel left a comment

Sorry for the delay. I will commit this with documentation and a fix for the memory leak.

source/blender/python/intern/bpy_rna.c

						
				@ -4380,0 +4395,4 @@

				              const PyObject *obj_ptr_py = pyrna_struct_CreatePyObject(&parentptr);

				              const PyObject *path_str_py = PyUnicode_FromString(path_str);

				              ret = PyTuple_Pack(3, obj_ptr_py, path_str_py, PyLong_FromLong(newindex));