Switching Views using python/hscript

[skyros]

I'm in the middle of making an otl for our artists and was wondering if there is a way to switch Houdini's viewport panes between Scene View and Composite View.  I haven't found the proper help files for manipulating Houdini's layout through scripting.

Thanks

Mike

[MrScienceOfficer]

I think you can do it with the hou.ui module using the pane classes,  last time I tried though(month or so ago) most of the pane functions crashed Houdini so I never really did much with it.

[malexander]

You'll need to iterate through the pane tabs in the current desktop to find one whose type is SceneViewer, then:

hou.curDesktop().paneTabs()[ index_of_viewort_tab ].setType( hou.CompositorViewer)

[skyros]

Thanks for the heads up Mark.  That was enough for me to search around a little more in the help files.

I have to say I found referencing UI elements a bit confusing since there seem to be several ways to look up different elements.  I ended up changing 'setType' to 'setIsCurrentTab', since I didn't want to actually change the tab but rather which one was selected.  If you have some thoughts on how I could improve this I would appreciate it.

 

import hou

class TabSwitch:
    """
    Switch viewport tabs based on user input
    """
    
    def __init__(self):
        self.comp       = hou.paneTabType.CompositorViewer
        self.scene      = hou.paneTabType.SceneViewer
    
    def getTab(self, tab):
        paneTabs = hou.ui.paneTabs()
        for pt in paneTabs:
            if(pt.type() == tab):
                pt.setIsCurrentTab()    
                              
ts = TabSwitch()       
ts.getTab(ts.comp)

 

 

Edited November 16, 2017 by skyros