Hi!
I wish to print out Dynamo-script(all the code blocks and their connections) to have it physically on paper so that I can make handwritten comments on them. I would preferably like to have ‘quite much’ script on each page(A3?), ish like on the photo attached. I have tried to take a screenshot of the code, but it ends up unreadible on A3 sheet. I have also tried saving it as a picture through Dynamo, but the background is black so it will take too much ink. I have also tried making the screenshot photos vectorized, but it was too unclear beforehand.
Anyone know if this is realistic, and how it can be done?
Thank you!
Not easily. I usually wind up cursing life when I have to go through it. I also wouldn’t recommend printing, as the page count is going to be absurd. Use a PDF and let yourself zoom in or use a series of cropped images and mark up those. Or better still: use a code block in the dynamo graph and type the comment as a multi-line string, then rename the node to ‘_comment’ so you can find it easily using the graph node manager. You can even pass inputs through the code block to allow specific control over where the comments are.
If you do want to do the paper method or images method, I recommend this process:
In Dynamo zoom in on the graph until you can read the nodes on screen very well. Then perhaps a little bit more.
Use the Export Canvas As Image feature and save the image to disc. The background is actually transparent now, so worry not about ink.
Start a new PowerPoint file (yes you read that right), and set up your page and canvas size.
Insert the image, and scale it up until it is at a good level to read (start a presentation on one monitor, and edit the size on another so you can verify as you go).
Copy the image and paste it on top of itself, and scale it down to a good thumbnail size.
Crop the large image to fit the page (worry not about what you see) and just below or to the side of your thumbnail.
Add a red (or any color)rectangle with no fill somewhere on top of the thumbnail so the edges align, and set the line style for the large image to red (or the matching color).
Set the transition to ‘morph’, and duplicate the slide.
Go back to slide 1, click ‘crop’ on the large image, and scale the image down to fit the boundary.
Go to slide 2, hit crop on the large image, and move the image around until you have the ‘first page view. Adjust the rectangle atop the thumbnail to show the approximate area which you just cropped to. This will be sure that you can see where you are in the larger graph context after you print.
Duplicate slide two and repeat step 10 as many times as needed until you have all pages set up.
Print, export to PDF, or markup the slides from there.
Added bonus: you can now do a screenshot are of the documented code in a way which will zoom from on part of the graph to the next (the morph feature should animate the zoom for you).
