.. _quickstart: Quickstart ========== In the following we will explore smartCommand's main features. In the menu bar let's navigate to **cragl -> smartCommand -> smartCommander** or hit **F12** to open the smartCommander. It will be created as a floating window. .. image:: img/quickstart/smartCommander_window.jpg Searching and executing commands -------------------------------- The smartCommander offers multiple lists. As we see at the bottom left, the current list is set to **all**. This mode shows us all commands from all menus and sub menus. In the list, we can either scroll to a particular command or type in the first characters of a command. For instance, let's search the **Flipbook Selected** command from the **render** menu. Type in the first characters **ren** as seen below: .. image:: img/quickstart/search_ren.jpg Our list will be filtered showing all commands that start with **ren** and this includes all commands from Nuke's **Render** menu. Click the **Flipbook Selected** command and your selected node will be flip booked. Creating collections -------------------- smartCommand lets you create collections to store your favorite commands. Let's hit **F12** again to open the smartCommander. Let's create a new menu for cloning and decloning nodes. Type in the initial characters **clon**. .. image:: img/quickstart/search_clon.jpg Hover over the **Edit/Clone** command, right click it and choose **Add to collection**. .. image:: img/quickstart/clone_add.jpg In the upcoming window we can specify, which collection we would like to add it to. As we haven't created any collection yet, let's select **new collection** from the dropdown and give it the name **custom**. Clicking the color field at the top right lets you set a color for the command as it will appear in our list. Let's skip this for now and assign a custom color at a later stage. .. image:: img/quickstart/add_clone_to_custom.jpg When we are done let's click the blue **Add** button. We get a notification about the successful creation of our custom collection. Our clone command was added to this new collection. .. image:: img/quickstart/custom_menu_created.jpg Let's right click the **Edit/Declone** command and add it to our **custom** collection as well. As we have created this collection, it is now selectable from the dropdown menu of the upcoming window to add. Switching collections --------------------- Let's switch to our custom collection. At the bottom left click the dropdown that reads the word **all** and set it to **custom**. .. image:: img/quickstart/dropdown_expanded.jpg The collection switches from **all** to **custom** and shows our two added commands for cloning and decloning. We can add additional commands to our **custom** collection and create as many collections as we like. .. image:: img/quickstart/custom_collection.jpg Editing commands ---------------- Let's update the shortcut for our Declone command to a simpler one. So hover over it, right click and choose **Shortcut/Set shortcut** from the context menu. .. image:: img/quickstart/set_shortcut.jpg In the upcoming hotkey editor let's check the **Alt** checkbox and use the **B** character, so that our new shortcut becomes **Alt+B**. .. image:: img/quickstart/hotkey_editor.jpg The new hotkey becomes immediately available inside Nuke and we don't need to restart. The update will also be shown right away in the smartCommander as seen below. .. image:: img/quickstart/declone_update_shortcut.jpg As we use the clone command quite often, let's tint it so that we can visually recognize it quicker. Let's right click the clone command and choose **Color/Update color** from the context menu. .. image:: img/quickstart/update_color.jpg The color picker window shows up and lets us choose a custom color for our command. Let's choose a purple color and hit the **OK** button. .. image:: img/quickstart/color_picker.jpg The clone command will now always include our custom purple color. We can always update this color by choosing the **Color/Update color** command again from the context menu or choose **Color/Remove color** underneath to clear the color. .. image:: img/quickstart/clone_custom_color.jpg As we have added the declone command after the clone command it will be shown at the top. We can always change the order of commands by holding the **ctrl** (Linux/Windows) or **cmd** (Mac) key and then clicking a command and releasing it at the position where we would like to drop it. In this case let's hold our ctrl or cmd key and click the clone command and move our cursor to the declone command and let go. The commands will be swapped. The new order will be remembered. .. image:: img/quickstart/new_order.jpg Working with scriptlets ----------------------- smartCommand offers the scriptlets menu that lets you create, edit and execute custom python scripts. By default smartCommand does not contain any scriptlets. In the following we describe how to download and install some offered scriptlets from us. Downloading and installing scriptlet presets -------------------------------------------- Here you can download smartCommand's default scriptlets: Download-sciptlets_ After you have downloaded the scriptlets, please extract them to the following location:: Linux: /home/[username]/cragl/smartCommand/scriptlets Mac: /Users/[username]/cragl/smartCommand/scriptlets Windows: C:\users\[username]\cragl/smartCommand/scriptlets Let's execute a scriptlet to see how it works. So hit **F12** to open the smartCommander, click the list drop down menu at the bottom left and choose **scriptlets** (shortcut: ctrl/cmd + 3). .. image:: img/quickstart/scriptlets.jpg This list shows all scriptlets. These are python files that we can use to execute directly inside Nuke. Let's for instance clean up our node graph and align some nodes. So let's select some nodes that we would like to align and navigate to the first command **align nodes**. If we hover over the command we will see a tooltip that tells us what this scriptlet does. .. image:: img/quickstart/align_nodes_tooltip.jpg Let's click the command and we are presented with a window to specify the align method (horizontal or vertical) and the space between the nodes in pixel. After we have set this window up to our needs and clicked the **OK** button, we have successfully aligned our nodes. If we right click a scriptlet we can choose to create a new scriptlet or edit the currently selected scriptlet from the context menu. .. image:: img/quickstart/scriptlets_contextmenu.jpg Please have a look at the `scriptlets `_ section for a more in depth look at working with scriptlets. .. download links .. _Download-sciptlets: http://www.cragl.com/scriptlets