Architectural_Design_with_SketchUp

Appendix D
Creating Your Own Plugins
The following is a basic template to get you started with writing your own plugins for SketchUp.
Even if you don’t want to publish your plugin, it might be useful sometimes to “install” a
script you created in SketchUp using this convenient method.
RBZ Plugin File Structure
The RBZ file format was introduced in Maintenance Release 2 of Version 8. Packaging a plug in
this way allows users to easily install it from SketchUp’s Preferences dialog.
To enable use of the RBZ-installer functionality, all files that make up a plugin must be
packaged in one single compressed file (note that the RBZ file format is simply a renamed ZIP
file). The following is a minimal sample file structure. You can add as many other files and
folders as necessary for your plugin. The entire contents of the compressed file (including
the folder structure) is copied into SketchUp’s Plugins folder on installation and the plugin is
made available immediately.
my_plugin.rbz (compressed file)
|
|— my_plugin_loader.rb
|
|— my_plugin (directory)
|
|— my_plugin.rb
As a reference: SketchUp’s default plugin installation folder can be found here (replace
version number with current major version):
Windows: C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8\Plugins\
Mac: /Library/Application Support/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp/Plugins/
TIP
Plugin Template Structure
It is a good idea to (1) use SketchUp’s extension system (so that plugins can be turned on
and off by the user) and (2) wrap your plugin in its own Ruby Module (to prevent conflicts
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