Not sure if anyone needs it but I wrote a shelf tool that sets the display/render flag to the nearest node to your cursor in the network editor. When you bind it to a hotkey, it boosts your productivity by 2% as you don't have to carefully focus on the display flag of nodes to set them Just hover around with your pen.

If there is a simpler way to get the current cursor position over the network editor, I would love to know. Here is the code:

import ctypes

MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN = 0x0002 # Left button down
MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP = 0x0004 # Left button up
MOUSEEVENTF_CLICK = MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN + MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP

selNodes = hou.selectedNodes ( )
networkEditor = hou.ui.paneTabOfType ( hou.paneTabType.NetworkEditor )
currentPath = networkEditor.pwd ( ).path ( )
context = networkEditor.pwd ( ).childTypeCategory ( )

ctypes.windll.user32.mouse_event ( MOUSEEVENTF_CLICK, 0, 0, 0, 0 )
ctypes.windll.user32.mouse_event ( MOUSEEVENTF_CLICK, 0, 0, 0, 0 )
pos = networkEditor.selectPosition ( None, -1, None, -1 )


nodes = hou.node ( currentPath ).children ( )
nearestNode = None
dist = 999999999.0

for node in nodes:
d = node.position ( ).distanceTo ( pos )
if d < dist:
nearestNode = node
dist = d

if nearestNode:
nearestNode.setDisplayFlag ( True )
nearestNode.setRenderFlag ( True )
nearestNode.setSelected ( True, clear_all_selected=True )



Enjoy

Interesting hack, thanks.

networkEditor.cursorPosition()

Enjoy

Thanks a lot, simplifies my code a lot Now I wonder why that is not documented?:
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini14.0/hom/hou/NetworkEditor [sidefx.com]

pusat
… it boosts your productivity by 2%…

Err… thanks???

kewl. thanks

mantragora

pusat
… it boosts your productivity by 2%…

Err… thanks???

It's up to 7% now

New changes:
Simplified position checking (thanks to pezetko)
More accurate distance calculation
For Object level nodes, it dives inside the nearest node
If a node is already selected either manually or with this tool and it's called again near the same node, it dives inside. So press the same hotkey twice if you want to dive inside Attrib VOPSOP, Volume VOPSOP, etc.
For VOP nodes, it selects the nearest node

networkEditor = kwargs
currentPath = networkEditor.pwd ( ).path ( )
context = networkEditor.pwd ( ).childTypeCategory ( )
currentContext = context.name()
pos = networkEditor.cursorPosition ( )

nodes = hou.node ( currentPath ).children ( )
nearestNode = None
dist = 999999999.0
for node in nodes:
d = ( node.position ( ) + ( node.size ( ) * 0.5 ) ).distanceTo ( pos )
#print “{0} {1} {2}”.format(d, node.position(), node.name())
if d < dist:
nearestNode = node
dist = d

handled = False
if nearestNode:
if currentContext == ‘Object’:
networkEditor.cd ( nearestNode.path ( ) )

if currentContext == ‘Sop’:
if nearestNode.isDisplayFlagSet ( ):
networkEditor.cd ( nearestNode.path ( ) )
handled = True
else:
nearestNode.setDisplayFlag ( True )
nearestNode.setRenderFlag ( True )

if currentContext != ‘Object’ and not handled:
nearestNode.setSelected ( True, clear_all_selected=True )

Feedback is welcome as always

Very nice!!!

Thanks mate

I think most of users will assign it to Network Pane Hotkey, so you can use kwargs instead of paneTabOfType.
Maybe it will be 0.0000000000000000001% faster

Thanks that's a good point Changed the code to reflect that.

Very Nice!!

Thanks It would be awesome if I could conditionally assign it to wacom pen. I never use the right click menu on the network editor outside the nodes. It would be nice if this could be configured so if you right click on the empty area of the network editor, it would invoke this hotkey.