Customizing Shelves

Owned by thomas (Unlicensed)
Last updated: 17 Jul, 2015
3 min read

Shelves are groups of elements, free to configure and equip with your own commands, tools, scripts, and graphs. The standard layout provides a total of 10 shelves.

The given order can be changed easily by dragging a shelf's title bar to a new place. Please note that this is only possible within the shelves area: you cannot attach a shelf to the → “Node Params” panel, for example.

Each shelf is equipped with a standard set of nodes, tools, or functions – called commands. It is possible to create your own shelves, rearrange the icons, and add new commands. Commands can also appear in more than one shelf. All changes, made on RealFlow's shelves, will be stored automatically, and it is not necessary to save them with the layout manually.

All shelves settings are stored in an XML file that can be exchanged with other users, or transferred to another RealFlow working place. The location of this file is displayed under

Preferences > Shelves

 

Here you will also find settings for adjusting icon size and how a shelf button's text is displayed.

 

Creating Shelves

To get a better understanding of the → “Shelves Manager's” functionality, we will create a new shelf for Hybrido nodes:

  • Open the “Shelves Manager” from Tools > Shelves Manager.
  • Click on the “Add new shelf” button (see below).
  • Confirm “Would you like to create a new shelf?”
  • An entry named “Shelf” appears.
  • Single-click on “Shelf”, click again to make it editable.
  • Enter “Hybrido Scene Nodes” as the shelf's name, and hit “Return”.

Adding Commands

Currently, the shelf is nothing more than an empty container. Commands can

  • be added via the “Shelves Manager” or drag and drop actions (see subchapter below).
  • appear multiple times in different shelves.
  • be internal RealFlow resources, or external text, script, and graphs files.

 

 

In order to add new commands, please follow these steps:

  • Open the →“Shelves Manager” from Tools > Shelves Manager.
  • In the manager's left area (“Shelves”) click on the shelf you want to equip with new commands.
  • Choose a command from the right area (“Full RealFlow Command List”). Use the “Filter” field to search for a specific command.
  • Shift the command to the middle area ("Selected Shelf Commands") by click on the large button with the triangle. Change a command's rank in the list by dragging it to a new position.
  • Confirm with “Close”. The new commands will appear immediately, and you do not have to save your changes with the layout.

Drag and Drop

Drag and drop is possible from

  • the “Commands Manager” to the “Shelves Manager”, and the GUI's shelves.
  • the “Shelves Manager” to the GUI's shelves.
  • external files to the GUI's shelves. This action creates file reference commands. Allowed extensions are: PY, RFS, RFG, and XML.
  • plain text can be dragged to the GUI's shelves. If the text appears to be XML RealFlow creates a new “Embedded Graph” command and displays an "Edit Command" dialog. Otherwise, it will create an “Embedded Script”, independent from the contained text type. This process is similar to clicking on "Add new Embedded Graph/Script".