Code Autocomplete Manual¶

Setup¶

Preferences¶

There are a few settings you can change to customize the addon. The Completion Providers are functions that take your code and cursor information and try to find suggestions for you. Currently there three main completion providers:

1. Jedi:

   The Jedi autocompletion library analyses your python code and all the files you import to give you the best suggestions possible. Unfortunally, due to the dynamics of the python programming language this does not work in all cases.

2. Existing Words:

   This will collect all the words that are in the current text block and allows you to rewrite eg. names you previously wrote faster and with less spelling mistakes.

3. Operators:

   Whenever you want to call a blender operator using bpy.ops. this completion provider helps you and saves time because you don’t have to look up the correct parameter names online in the api.

Beside these providers you get multiple properties to change the appearance of the context and description box in the text editor. The settings should be pretty self explanatory.

The Debug property is only for me if I want to activate some additional print statements in the addon which help me to track down bugs.

Using the Autocompletion¶

To enable the autocompletion feature for the current session just click on the Start button.

As soon as you start typing a context box will popup that gives you suggestions.

Normally the context box opens and closes automatically but you can also do this manually:

• Open: shift ESC
• Close: ESC or clicking somewhere else in the text editor

Navigation through the context box:

• Arrow Up/Down: Move the selected index in the arrow-direction.
• Page Up/Down: Same as arrow keys but skips a fixed a few items.
• Home/End: Jump to the first or last element.
• Wheel Up/Down: Move the selected index in the rotation direction. This only works when the mouse is on top of the context box.

Inserting a suggestion:

• Use TAB/ENTER to insert the currently selected suggestion.
• Left click on a suggestion will insert it too.

The Jedi library is not always fast. Particularly when it scans a new module it can take a second. After that it should be faster again. If you don’t want these slow downs you can turn Jedi of by disabling the Use Jedi Completion property. Fortunally, the Jedi library is not the only Completion Provider in this addon. You will still be able to autocomplete words that already exist as well as the bpy.ops operators.

Inserting Templates¶

The templates menu in the text editor contains a few more templates now. For faster access you can also use the Ctrl Spacebar shortcut.

Some templates have some extra settings you will be asked for. For example the name of a new Panel.

Addon Development¶

Code Autocomplete comes with several tools which simplify addon development inside of Blender a lot. Blender itself is not good for it, because it is hard to manage multiple files and to register everything correctly. This addon tries to overcome these difficulties by providing templates and operators to quickly create, extend and export code.

The Addon Development tools only work with addons which have their own folders (not single-file addons, these can be created without Code Autocomplete).

Before you can start coding you have to choose which addon you want to work on. You can either work on an existing one or create a completely new one. To select one that already exist you can write its name in the corresponding field or click on the eyedropper next to it to get a list of all installed multi-file addons.

Creating a new Addon¶

To start a new addon you have to write the name it should have in the text box. Code Autocomplete will check automatically if the addon already exists and decides wether it should give you the options to create a new one or not. It will also not allow you to use addon names that may become problematic later.

If you inserted a ‘incorrect’ addon name, a button to correct this name appears. Basically this operator replaces spaces with underscores and makes everything lower case (this is not the name the end user will see, and changing it later is easy).

Once you have a correct name you get a new button to finally create the addon folder. You get two template options:

• Basic:

  This template contains only the minimum code that is needed to have a valid addon. There is the bl_info property as well as the register and unregister functions.

• Multi-File:

  This (recommended) addon template contains the same as Basic, but beside that there is a license and code that simplifies loading the different files of your addon. The loading code is the same that imports other addons like Code Autocomplete itself, but also the Animation Nodes addon.

As soon as you select a template the addon folder will be created. A new panel called Addon Files appears and the __init__.py file that is the heart of every addon is displayed in the text editor.

Working on an Addon¶

Addon Files Panel¶

This panel gives you access to all the files and directories in your addon. You can create, open, rename and delete files. For more file manipulations you should open the addon folder in your default file browser using the folder icon.

The Save All Files operator looks which files you have currently opened and will save them. When you Run the addon this will happen as well.

Addon Development Panel¶

When you click onthe Run Addon button all files will be saved first. Then your addon will be unregistered (if it has been registered before), reloaded and registered again. You should not use the normal Run Script button at the bottom.

From time to time it is useful to Restart Blender to have a clean working environment, so that you are not effected by earlier code executions. This operator currently only works on Windows.

When your addon is in a state so that you want to share it, the Export as Zip operator becomes very handy. After clicking you have to choose an output location and name. Now you complete addon will be packed in to a zip file that others can install.

Misc¶

Comment and Uncomment¶

I extended the right click menu in the text editor to enable you to comment the selected code lines out more quickly.

Switch Active Text Block¶

You can change the active text block with the ctrl TAB shortcut more quickly now. It opens a small menu with all the text blocks that are currently inside the file.