{"id":1400,"date":"2012-11-04T03:22:18","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T01:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smart-page.net\/blog\/?p=1400"},"modified":"2012-11-04T06:46:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T04:46:00","slug":"python-cinema-4d-api-auto-completion-fake-modules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.smart-page.net\/blog\/2012\/11\/04\/python-cinema-4d-api-auto-completion-fake-modules\/","title":{"rendered":"Python Cinema 4D API auto completion (fake package)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The combination of Eclipse and PyDev makes an excellent development environment for coding Cinema 4D python plugins.
\nSadly, there was this one – major – feature of PyDev I just couldn\u2019t get to work… completions.<\/p>\n

And that was a shame, because this is probably the most awesome feature of PyDev and speeds things up a lot.<\/p>\n

Now it’s finally usable!<\/strong> (well… mostly)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Why?<\/h3>\n

And there was this other issue… since your interpreter and PyDev know nothing of the Cinema 4D API, PyDev marks every import and call as error.<\/p>\n

Before long, you don’t even bother looking at the ‘Problems’-tab anymore – there’s just errors everywhere!<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n
\nIf that feature was working, it would greatly reduce the number of plugin-reloads or Cinema 4D restarts as one would be able to catch many typos, syntax errors and alike before actually executing the code.
\n<\/p>\n

How?<\/h3>\n

After some failed tries, I finally managed to pull most of what I needed from the API via introspection:
\nattributes, classes, methods…<\/p>\n

What I didn’t manage to extract are method arguments – sorry, it just can’t be done that way…
\n
\nBut still this is way better than nothing or what I had initially hoped for – I ended up with a neat little fake ‘c4d’ package including all sub modules.<\/p>\n

I moved it to the ‘\/Libs\/site-packages\/’<\/em> folder of my external interpreter (DONT! try that with the Cinema 4D interpreter – just install a second), fired up Eclipse… opened a fairly complex plugin project… and b\u00e4m! no errors – working auto completion – happiness!<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n
\nOh and the best part? This should work with any other python IDE that do not rely on predefined completion libraries.
\n<\/p>\n

Where?<\/h3>\n

So I updated the Advanced Python plugin coding for Cinema 4D post<\/a> (that will help you to setup your Eclipse+PyDev developing environment – if you don’t already use one, just head over) accordingly and uploaded the package…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

-> You can grab the fake package here!<\/a> <-<\/strong>
\n<\/p>\n

But hear me out first!<\/h3>\n

There is some disclaimer stuff that I would really like you to read before you use it:<\/strong>
\n<\/p>\n

    \n
  • These are FAKE! modules – they may N E V E R<\/strong> go out into the wild – please make really sure you don’t accidently ship them with your plugin etc.<\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  • Everything is extracted from the Cinema 4D R14.025 Python API – if you use any other build, you might\/will see inconsistencies. I would supply the script to extract them but it’s not that simple, a good deal of manual labour went into this…<\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  • This is slapped together with a lot of tape, voodoo, coffee and good intentions – I am sure there are a lot of areas where I messed up, so A L W A Y S<\/strong> (sry 4 caps lock) make sure you use the documentation.
    \nN E V E R<\/strong> rely on the docstings of these modules.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    <\/p>\n

    Have fun coding!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The combination of Eclipse and PyDev makes an excellent development environment for coding Cinema 4D python plugins. Sadly, there was this one – major – feature of PyDev I just couldn\u2019t get to work… completions. And that was a shame, because this is probably the most awesome feature of PyDev and speeds things up a lot. Now it’s finally usable! (well… mostly)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[52,53,1,88],"tags":[188,180,189,190,181],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-page.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-page.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-page.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-page.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-page.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":44,"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-page.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1451,"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-page.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions\/1451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-page.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-page.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-page.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}