Getting Started & Tutorials

Example Extensions

We often find that we need a level of training that goes well beyond the basics, but is more informative than just reading the API documentation. Look no further! Check out our Example Extensions section for examples of fully functioning SketchUp Extensions, complete with comments and helpful hints.

How Do I Use These Tutorials?

Hopefully you can use these examples however you want. The Example code is available 3 different ways. You can:

1. Read the Example Extensions tutorials on the SketchUp Developer website. Read through the step by step tutorial of the code and comments and try to follow along by building the same extension yourself. Use these examples to help learn better SketchUp API usage.
2. Fork the fully commented examples from Github. Get the code right on your machine, with all the comments for easy access. Use it as a quick reference to comments, code snippets, etc.
3. Fork the non-commented version from Github. This is handy for people who just want to look at the code quickly and move on. You can copy and paste chunks of code easily from the non-commented samples without the verbose comments getting in the way.

Depending what you are trying to achieve, there is a method to get there easily. Just get all the code at once, and pull out what you need. Or follow along line by line, tutorial style. The end goal is for everyone to gain access to solid code examples that help improve their SketchUp extensions.

Loading Directly from the Repository

If you clone this repository to your computer you can load the files directly from where you cloned them using a proxy loading script:

# Create a file in your Plugins folder with these lines:
$LOAD_PATH << 'some\path\to\sketchup-ruby-api-tutorials'
require 'load_tutorials.rb'

That snippet will take care of loading the examples and tutorials.

If you have examples of your own that you think might be useful open a Pull Request. Follow the pattern of the existing examples.

You can use Examples.reload while you work to reload all the files.

Development Guides

Also make sure to check out the Wiki section for guides on how to setup your project for extension development, IDE setup and more.