Python Console

Python Console

The Python console is a quick way to execute commands, with access to the entire Python API, command history and auto-complete. It's a research tool for addon- and script developers. But also a place to quickly execute single operators or to try out some simple code.

Console Menu

The Console menu provides some console editor window specific functionality.

Zoom Text Out

Zooms out the text in the console window.

Zoom Text In

Zooms in the text in the console window.

Languages

Languages is a sub menu where you can choose the language.

This menu looks pretty useless, since there is just one language available. Python. But it has its usage. With a click at the Python button you can restart the console when you have lost yourself in the deeps of the API.

Area Menu

Area is a menu with window related settings.

Horizontal Split

Splits the editor horizontally into two editors.

Vertical Split

Splits the editor vertically into two editors.

Duplicate Area into new Window

Creates a floating window out of the current editor.

Toggle Maximize Area

Displays the editor maximized with menus.

To return to split view press hotkey Ctrl Spacebar, or reuse the menu item in the View menu.

Toggle Fullscreen Area

Displays the editor maximized without menus.

To return from the full screen view press hotkey Ctrl Alt Spacebar, or use the little button that appears up right when you move the mouse in this corner.

Close Area

Closes the area window.

Edit Menu

The Edit menu provides you with text specific functionality. Its content should be used by hotkeys. The menu is more to show that this functionality exists.

Select Text sub menu

Move Cursor sub menu

Delete

Delete is a sub menu with several delete methods.

History Cycle

Cycles through the history.

Up arrow cycles forwards through the history. Down arrow cycles backwards through the history.

What does this mean? When you write some text, then add something more, delete something, then all this steps are entries in the history. And with History cycle you can access this steps.

Auto complete

Auto complete is a functionality to auto complete what you have written in the console. It lists for example all available bpy operators when you type in bpy.context.area. , and then hit the Auto complete button. That way you can go through the whole bpy hierarchy down to what you need for your code, starting with bpy. , and having a look at what is available.

Usage

Accessing Built-in Python Console

From the screen shot above, you will notice that by clicking at the Auto complete button you can enable Auto-complete feature.

The command prompt is typical for Python 3.x, the interpreter is loaded and is ready to accept commands at the prompt >>>

First look at the Console Environment

To check what is loaded into the interpreter environment, type dir() at the prompt and execute it.

Following is a quick overview of the output

C

Quick access to bpy.context

D

Quick access to bpy.data

bpy

Top level Bforartists Python API module.

The rest of the commands are of various content. Most of them are mathematical expressions.

Auto Completion at work

Type bpy. and then press the Auto complete button.

A list of sub-modules inside of bpy will appear. These modules encapsulate all that we can do with Bforartists Python API.

Lets list all the contents of bpy.app module.

Notice the green output above the prompt where you enabled auto-completion. What you see is the result of auto completion listing. In the above listing all are module attribute names, but if you see any name end with ‘(‘, then that is a function.

We will make use of this a lot to help our learning the API faster. Now that you got a hang of this, lets proceed to investigate some of modules in bpy.

Before working with the modules.

If you look at the 3D Viewport in the default Bforartists scene, you will notice some objects. We have added a cube here too.

• All objects exist in a context and there can be various modes under which they are operated upon.
• At any instance, only one object is active and there can be more than one selected objects.
• All objects are data in the Bforartists file.
• There are operators/functions that create and modify these objects.

For all the scenarios listed above the bpy module provides functionality to access and modify data.

Examples

bpy.context

Try it out!

bpy.context.mode

Will print the current 3D View mode (Object, Edit, Sculpt etc.,)

bpy.context.object or bpy.context.active_object

Will give access to the active object in the 3D View

>>> bpy.context.object.location.x = 1

Change x location to a value of 1

>>> bpy.context.object.location.x += 0.5

Move object from previous x location by 0.5 unit

>>> bpy.context.object.location = (1, 2, 3)

Changes x, y, z location

>>> bpy.context.object.location.xyz = (1, 2, 3)

Same as above

>>> type(bpy.context.object.location)

Data type of objects location

>>> dir(bpy.context.object.location)

Now that is a lot of data that you have access to

bpy.context.selected_objects

Will give access to a list of all selected objects.

>>> bpy.context.selected_objects

... then press Ctrl-Spacebar

>>> bpy.context.selected_objects[0]

Prints out name of first object in the list

>>> [object for object in bpy.context.selected_objects if object != bpy.context.object]

Complex one... But this prints a list of objects not including the active object

bpy.data

bpy.data has functions and attributes that give you access to all the data in the Bforartists file.

You can access following data in the current Bforartists file: objects, meshes, materials, textures, scenes, screens, sounds, scripts, ... etc.

That’s a lot of data.

Try it out!

Exercise

>>> for object in bpy.data.scenes['Scene'].objects: print(object.name)

Enter twice Prints the names of all objects belonging to the Bforartists scene with name “Scene”

>>> bpy.data.scenes['Scene'].objects.unlink(bpy.context.active_object)

Unlink the active object from the Bforartists scene named ‘Scene’

>>> bpy.data.materials['Material'].shadows

>>> bpy.data.materials['Material'].shadows = False

bpy.ops

The tool/action system in Bforartists is built around the concept of operators. These operators can be called directly from console or can be executed by click of a button or packaged in a python script. Very powerful they are..

Lets create a set of five Cubes in the 3D Viewport. First, delete the existing Cube object by selecting it and pressing X

Try it out!

The following commands are used to specify that the objects are created in layer 1. So first we define an array variable for later reference:

>>> mylayers = [False] * 20

>>> mylayers[0] = True

We create a reference to the operator that is used for creating a cube mesh primitive

>>> add_cube = bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add

Now in a for loop, we create the five objects like this (In the screenshot above, I used another method) Press Enter-KEY twice after entering the command at the shell prompt.

>>> for index in range(0, 5): add_cube(location=(index * 3, 0, 0), layers=mylayers)