Maya UI and passing arguments to functions

Mar 5, 2015 · Comments

Just a little reminder to get all the different ways of passing arguments from a native Maya UI. Just type anything and see the result in the text field at the bottom. You can see that when you use a class, the basics methods offered by Maya do not work.

Some methods are obviously better than others, personally I totally recommend the use functools.partial, it gives only advantages over the others. Pymel is great, but I personally don’t use it any more as some studios don’t support it—as well as Autodesk—and because I had some crash problems with it in batch mode in the past, and don’t forget the 2 seconds freeze from its first import.

The Qt (cute) framework is easily available since Maya 2011 switching to PySide in Maya 2014 but I will not cover those cases for now.

def function(*args):
    print args
    cmds.textFieldGrp(text, edit=True, text=str(args))

variable = 'Variable'
width = [1, 250]
align = [1, 'left']
window = cmds.window(title='UI and commands arguments.')
cmds.columnLayout()

cmds.textFieldGrp(label="\"function()\"", changeCommand="function()", columnWidth=width, columnAlign=align)
cmds.textFieldGrp(label="function", changeCommand=function, columnWidth=width, columnAlign=align)
cmds.textFieldGrp(label="\"function(variable)\"", changeCommand="function(variable)", columnWidth=width, columnAlign=align)
cmds.textFieldGrp(label="lambda x: function(variable)", changeCommand=lambda x: function(variable), columnWidth=width, columnAlign=align)
cmds.separator(style="double", height=20)

import functools
cmds.textFieldGrp(changeCommand=functools.partial(function), label='functools.partial(function)', columnWidth=width, columnAlign=align)
cmds.textFieldGrp(changeCommand=functools.partial(function, variable), label='functools.partial(function, variable)', columnWidth=width, columnAlign=align)
cmds.separator(style="single", height=20)

import pymel.core
cmds.textFieldGrp(changeCommand=pymel.core.Callback(function), label='pymel.core.Callback(function)', columnWidth=width, columnAlign=align)
cmds.textFieldGrp(changeCommand=pymel.core.CallbackWithArgs(function), label='pymel.core.CallbackWithArgs(function)', columnWidth=width, columnAlign=align)
cmds.textFieldGrp(changeCommand=pymel.core.CallbackWithArgs(function, variable), label='pymel.core.CallbackWithArgs(function, variable)', columnWidth=width, columnAlign=align)

cmds.separator(style="single", height=20)
text = cmds.textFieldGrp(label='RESULT: ', text='', width=500)
cmds.showWindow()




class MayaUI():
    def __init__(self):
        self.variable = 'Variable'
        self.width = [1, 250]
        self.align = [1, 'left']
        self.window = cmds.window(title='UI and commands arguments.')
        cmds.columnLayout()

        cmds.textFieldGrp(label="\"self.function()\"", changeCommand="self.function()", columnWidth=self.width, columnAlign=self.align)
        cmds.textFieldGrp(label="self.function", changeCommand=self.function, columnWidth=self.width, columnAlign=self.align)
        cmds.textFieldGrp(label="\"self.function(self.variable)\"", changeCommand="self.function(self.variable)", columnWidth=self.width, columnAlign=self.align)
        cmds.textFieldGrp(label="lambda x: self.function(self.variable)", changeCommand=lambda x: self.function(self.variable), columnWidth=self.width, columnAlign=self.align)
        cmds.separator(style="double", height=20)

        import functools
        cmds.textFieldGrp(changeCommand=functools.partial(self.function), label='functools.partial(self.function)', columnWidth=self.width, columnAlign=self.align)
        cmds.textFieldGrp(changeCommand=functools.partial(self.function, self.variable), label='functools.partial(self.function, self.variable)', columnWidth=self.width, columnAlign=self.align)
        cmds.separator(style="single", height=20)

        import pymel.core
        cmds.textFieldGrp(changeCommand=pymel.core.Callback(self.function), label='pymel.core.Callback(self.function)', columnWidth=self.width, columnAlign=self.align)
        cmds.textFieldGrp(changeCommand=pymel.core.CallbackWithArgs(self.function), label='pymel.core.CallbackWithArgs(self.function)', columnWidth=self.width, columnAlign=self.align)
        cmds.textFieldGrp(changeCommand=pymel.core.CallbackWithArgs(self.function, self.variable), label='pymel.core.CallbackWithArgs(self.function, self.variable)', columnWidth=self.width, columnAlign=self.align)

        # A bit more complicated
        _map = {'textFieldGrp': lambda arg:cmds.textFieldGrp(arg, query=True, text=True)}
        _com = lambda *args:args[0](self.variable, _map[args[1]](args[2]))
        cmds.textFieldGrp('textfieldName', changeCommand=pymel.core.Callback(_com, self.function, 'textFieldGrp', 'textfieldName'), label="pymel.core.Callback(_com, self.function, 'textFieldGrp', 'textfieldName') + lambdas", columnWidth=self.width, columnAlign=self.align)

        cmds.separator(style="single", height=20)
        self.text = cmds.textFieldGrp(label='RESULT: ', text='', width=500)
        cmds.showWindow()

    def function(self, *args):
        print args
        cmds.textFieldGrp(self.text, edit=True, text=str(args))

MayaUI()

Béranger Roussel

FX Artist - Technical Director

Maya UI and passing arguments to functions