Feature Request: Bulk-reload files in pipeline

bastian · December 1, 2020, 5:25pm

Dear Santa,

it would be absolutely fabulous to be able to press F5 and have multiple input objects reload at once; e.g. all the objects below of what is currently selected in the pipeline or those that are currently selected.
Right now I need to go through all input objects one by one.

This feature is not going to be a game-changer, but it would enhance the user experience, for example when debugging a code through visual inspection of the results it produces.

Best,
Bastian

Update:
As @wascott pointed out, when selecting multiple input objects, these can indeed be reloaded at once by pressing F5.
What I really want is to have F5 reload all the input objects in the current selection even if that includes non-reloadable non-input objects.

Update 2:
The above update was wrong, I just tested it again. When selecting multiple items, only the last selected item is reloaded.
So, with multiple input objects one is obliged to reload them one by one.

wascott · December 1, 2020, 6:04pm

@utkarsh.ayachit @cory.quammen I just looked, and “Reload Files” is plural. Shouldn’t this request actually work for all items in the pipeline? If Bastian is correct, is this a bug?

bastian · December 1, 2020, 6:31pm

No, only the last selected item is reloaded.

utkarsh.ayachit · December 2, 2020, 4:26pm

No, it’s plural ‘files’ since a single reader can read multiple files. It’s designed to only work for selected reader.

wascott · December 2, 2020, 5:18pm

Of course, silly me. Thanks for the reply.

richti83 · December 4, 2020, 8:47pm

Years ago (when the “Reload Files” method has not been available yet) I’ve written a simple python macro to reload the whole pipeline:

github.com

richti83/ParaView_Reader_for_LIGGGHTS/blob/master/python_macros/update.py

from paraview.simple import *
import glob

DIGITS = '0123456789'

def makeGlobExpression(a, b):
    #Compare two fileNames and return a glob expression that matches both

    # simple cases
    if (a == b):
        return a
    if (len(a) == 0) or (len(b) == 0):
        return '*'

    # Always make a shorter than b (saves us comparisons later on)
    if (len(a) > len(b)):
        a, b = b, a

    # Compare from the left
    left = 0

This file has been truncated. show original

It’s special for my use case but easy to adapt.
Best,
Christian.