Announcing GitHub PluginCafe BETA

On 07/04/2014 at 09:26, xxxxxxxx wrote:

User Information:
Cinema 4D Version:    
Platform:      
Language(s) :

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Hello dear developers,

as of today, we are starting the BETA phase of the PluginCafe GitHub Organization as our official
location for hosting and crowd-sourcing Cinema 4D C++ and Python example source files. The
repositories contain complete fresh baked examples that do not appear in the Cinema 4D SDK
shipped with the application. On the long-term, we aim to replace the shipped SDK with these
shiny new collections.

The PluginCafe Organization has been around for quite a while now but is now an official Beta
program.

Our goals:

• Provide better example code with more documentation
• Let the community contribute to the official SDK
• More communication between the third-party and MAXON developers

What will happen:

• The C++ and Python SDKs on GitHub will continuously improve
• MAXON developers will contribute originally proprietary source code
• Examples that are created on-demand from questions on this forum will merge into the SDK.
  For instance, the following examples have been contributed and originated as questions
  on this forum.

- cpp-cinema4dsdk: datatype/floatlist
- py-cinema4dsdk: gui/restore-sub-dialog

Also, don't forget to check the README file that comes with some examples (namely 
Markdown files with the same name as the source file).

Come and visit the PluginCafe on GitHub!

C++ SDK: https://github.com/PluginCafe/cpp-cinema4dsdk
Python SDK: https://github.com/PluginCafe/py-cinema4dsdk

We will link to these repositories in the future when pointing to example plugins.

Note : Since both projects are at their very beginning, there are not so many examples
available, but it will grow with time.

I'm not familar with GitHub

GitHub is a website for hosting Git repositories. Git is a Version Control System that is widely used
in business and private developments. Here's a nice introduction, and there's GitHub help!

On 07/04/2014 at 13:52, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Originally posted by xxxxxxxx

as of today, we are starting the BETA phase of the PluginCafe GitHub Organization as our official

:clap:

Having a vibrant and flourishing 3rd party business will strengthen Maxon and Cinema 4D very much!

Originally posted by xxxxxxxx

More communication between the third-party and MAXON developers

I am really looking forward to this!!

All in all - GREAT NEWS!!

On 08/04/2014 at 01:58, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Yes, great news.
Examples are for me the best "school".

On 08/04/2014 at 08:26, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Good work Niklas..

Learning Python in C4D over the past few weeks for me has been a process of chasing my tail, searching the entirety of google for examples and hints of code, trawling the docs over and over again ( including the C++ documentation ).  I have got to the point now where almost no matter what i search for in google related to C4D Python, i have already visited all of the pages..

There`s also a lot of stuff in the SDK for which there are literally NO examples of working code or how they should work.

Also trying to get answers to questions online is a real challenge.  There are three main forums which cater for Python in C4D - PluginCafe ( obviously ), C4DCafe, and CGTalk.  Trying to get answers on any of those is like p***ing in the wind tbh..  If youre lucky PerAnders will appear, or yourself Niklas, but thats about it..

I have thrown a lot of TIME into getting to grips with Python over the past few weeks, under the illusion that it was well-supported and resources were available.  This has been pretty disappointing and has cost me a lot of time and frustration.  Hopefully things can start to improve, as the C4D SDK itself is amazingly powerful..

That is all!

On 08/04/2014 at 10:39, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Originally posted by xxxxxxxx

I have got to the point now where almost no matter what i search for in google related to C4D Python, i have already visited all of the pages..
...
Also trying to get answers to questions online is a real challenge.
...
This has been pretty disappointing and has cost me a lot of time and frustration.

There is something familiar with this..

Originally posted by xxxxxxxx

Hopefully things can start to improve, as the C4D SDK itself is amazingly powerful..

Yes, we can at least hope now!
Time will show. I am optimist.

On 08/04/2014 at 16:50, xxxxxxxx wrote:

I literally registered to ask where to find a clean version of the SDK. Damn you Maxon for beeing always on step ahead of me.

I however have this error with make on mac (C++ SDK) :

projects/c4d-make/Makefile:53: ../api/c4d.mak: No such file or directory
make: *** No rule to make target `../api/c4d.mak'.  Stop.

I understand the error (and the code explains it) but I cannot find this file anywhere...

Thanks!

On 09/04/2014 at 01:42, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi Moustach,

I have added the information about c4dmake, which I should have included in the first place, to the
repository. The thing is that c4dmake is not an officially supported way to compile the Cinema 4D API and
Plugins. There is someone else working to create the Visual Studio and XCode project files so they can be
released soon.

I am sorry for the inconveniences, but as stated, the project is doing its first steps. Please also redownload
the repository as I have made a few tiny changes today so your copy is in sync and it won't introduce 
minor misunderstandings.

That being said, on a non-official note, as I am the developer and maintainer of c4dmake, you
first have to install c4dmake as described here. I personally am only developing using c4dmake and use
no IDE. That is also why I can't create the project files for Visual Studio and XCode myself.

Best,
-Nikas

On 09/04/2014 at 11:12, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hey Niklas,

Thank you for your answer, I'll look more into it tonight!

On 24/04/2014 at 10:59, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi - this is very exciting news! That said, and maybe this is lack of experience with GitHub, but I'd like some middle ground between the current SDK documentation, and the GitHub system.

What I'm missing:

* A list of a SDK accessible classes/functions as you see in our current documentation.
* Syntax highlighting of the SDK examples (specifically Python examples) online.
* A cleaner link between the Q&A; format of PluginCafe and the code examples of the SDK. Perhaps something closer to StackOverflow?

I think a lot of this could be accomplished by taking the current SDK docs and using something more akin to a Wiki format, so that we can add examples and explanation to the classes/methods listed.

On 24/04/2014 at 14:05, xxxxxxxx wrote:

I finally tried, it works great!

Thanks!

On 25/04/2014 at 14:24, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi Moustach, thanks for telling us. Would be bad if not :)

Thanks for your feedback, Donovan.
@1: Which classes/functions and where would you like them to be listed?
@2: I've sent a message to the GitHub support already (see #4)
@3: We'll be looking at it. :wink:

Cheers,
-Niklas

On 25/04/2014 at 17:44, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hey Niklas,

Perhaps I'm not totally clear on the goals of this project. Is the GitHub Repo meant to replace the current SDK documentation or is it supposed to be a supplement?

If it's meant to replace the docs, then there are a lot of nice things about the docs that the GitHub repo doesn't currently address:

* A general introduction to programming in C4D
* Links to helpful websites/books/etc
* A list of all SDK accessible classes & methods
* A searchable list of keywords
* Short examples (albeit few and far between) of how to use various methods right below their definition.

If the goal of the repo is to supplement the current docs, then I'd really like for there to be an easy way to point people from the current docs to all of the examples in the GitHub SDK where a given class/method is used. Ideally that would probably be something like wiki-editable docs, or a comments thread under each method where people can discuss them.

I think that the GitHub wiki would be a good place to start adding an FAQ section, and list of helpful tutorials, etc.

Also, there's a fair amount of overlap between the Python & C++ SDKs - because they're currently separate repos, any helpful documentation (about the way that C4D works) will need to be duplicated between the repos.

I'm not sure how to address these issues, but these are my first impressions.

-Donovan

On 25/04/2014 at 17:46, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Oh, and thanks for sending a message to GitHub support - here's hoping they start syntax highlighting for .pyp!

On 26/04/2014 at 08:09, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Originally posted by xxxxxxxx

Hey Niklas,

Perhaps I'm not totally clear on the goals of this project. Is the GitHub Repo meant to replace the current SDK documentation or is it supposed to be a supplement?

If it's meant to replace the docs, then there are a lot of nice things about the docs that the GitHub repo doesn't currently address:

* A general introduction to programming in C4D
* Links to helpful websites/books/etc
* A list of all SDK accessible classes & methods
* A searchable list of keywords
* Short examples (albeit few and far between) of how to use various methods right below their definition.

If the goal of the repo is to supplement the current docs, then I'd really like for there to be an easy way to point people from the current docs to all of the examples in the GitHub SDK where a given class/method is used. Ideally that would probably be something like wiki-editable docs, or a comments thread under each method where people can discuss them.

I think that the GitHub wiki would be a good place to start adding an FAQ section, and list of helpful tutorials, etc.

Also, there's a fair amount of overlap between the Python & C++ SDKs - because they're currently separate repos, any helpful documentation (about the way that C4D works) will need to be duplicated between the repos.

I'm not sure how to address these issues, but these are my first impressions.

-Donovan

Hi Donovan,

It seems like I have been quite inaccurate about the project goals, I'm sorry for the confusion. The
SDKs are not meant to replace the documentation! They could never, they're just code examples.
They're meant to replace the existing SDKs (being collections of plugin examples) which you can find
in the Cinema 4D plugins/ folder for the C++ SKD and in the help/examples/ folder of the Python Docs
archive.
The code there is mostly rotten and old, little documented and bad structured.

We're working on a solution to integrate the SDK repositories with the online documentation already.

The GitHub wiki will soon be filled with such stuff, including our coding style guidelines (for which it would
be nice if contributors stick to it, but its not absolutely necessary)

We will try to keep the examples in sync, meaning that the same example plugin in Python is available
in C++ (see the starters/ folder in each repository for instance), but it's not always possible.

Best,
-Niklas

On 26/04/2014 at 08:37, xxxxxxxx wrote:

In other words. He's trying to do what I've been doing for years.
https://sites.google.com/site/scottayersmedia/plugins
Except using GitHub, instead of a static web page.
So you guys can also send things in and participate if you would like to contribute to it.

I hope it works out better than the last one did: http://c4dprogramming.wordpress.com/
That one started out wonderfully. But then died as quickly as it started.

-ScottA

On 15/05/2014 at 10:37, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Thank god!  I love github!

On 31/05/2014 at 23:15, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Any news on the Xcode project file?

On 16/06/2014 at 03:30, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi Moustach,

sorry for the late reply. Visual Studio 2012 project files have just been added. XCode project
files will follow soon.

Cheers,
-Niklas

On 29/07/2014 at 17:21, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Any update on those XCode project files?
Thanks!

Donovan