Hello,

I have a Multiparm Block (tabs) that allows users to position objects within my Digital Asset. The objects have a fairly large stack of attribs, and I'd like to give the user a visual indication of which object their currently selected tab refers to. Is there any way to read the currently selected multiparm tab?

When dealing with regular (non-multiparm) folders, you can open a Python shell and do:
hou.node('/obj/myhda1').parm('tabfolder').eval()
… and it tells you which (non-multiparm) tab is selected by index.

But, when you call eval() on a multiparm folder parameter, you do not get the index of the currently selected folder. Houdini returns the integer total count of multiparms created.

Seems this question has been asked before [sidefx.com], a couple of years ago, and was never answered. (On the ODForce boards too, [forums.odforce.net] but the replies were all misunderstanding the multiparm block part.) I have the exact same question as that guy. I don't suppose a way of doing this has surfaced since then?

Maybe there is a way to query some hidden GUI element that's responsible for showing the multiparm tabs? Or maybe a fancy way to use callback scripts?

I don't think it's possible.

That would be unfortunate…

There must be a better way to correlate tab number to object it controls. All I can think of is having text float next to each object so the user can look up the correct tab number.

Four years later I am running into a similar issue… Is there a way to do this now? If not misterbk, I am curious as to what your work-around was.

same here, would be nice to be able to get certain tab into focus

did someone ever find this out?

Currently there is no event handling when switching the tab menu and it is also not possible to set a default tab menu. I think they are treated as simple visibility property. A workaround is to create a separate button/toggle as a multi-parm instance which allows to set the current instance manually. You can then store the currently selected state in a separate parameter and read the data elsewhere.


There is an example in the hip file, have a look at the code in the Python module.

I wanted to see if I could have a tab be forced on the user. But I think you inspired me to go for a workaround!