Exactly what can you do with Python?

[Jim Allen]

One wish I have had with Archicad since I moved from Vectorworks several years ago, is the ability to rotate stuff (objects, geometry etc) 90 degrees with a single keystroke shortcut.

It's amazing how much time a little shortcut like this can save. Almost every time I use Archicad, I rotate things 90 degrees or more. Instead of Command-E, click to place the protractor, click to define the starting angle, and click to define the rotation angle, it could just be a single keystroke, or two for 180 degrees.

When I first learned about the Python connection, this is the first thing I thought might be possible to implement.

My son is good with Python and I thought i might ask him to see if he could do it, because it doesn't sound complicated.

Then reading through the posts on the subject here, it seems like it might be a lot more complicated than I thought.

The Python palette runs the scripts, which is fine, but it doesn't appear that they can be triggered with keystrokes, which pretty much rules out what I wanted.

There is quite a lot of documentation with sample scripts, and there are quite a few videos. It seems good for interrogating the model and running reports, but what else?

The question I didn't find an answer to, is exactly what can you use Python for? 

I read the Getting Started documentation, but this wasn't at all helpful, and that's being really tactful! There was no summary overview which I would have thought was an obvious thing to have.

What I would also have liked to have seen was some kind of centralised facility for people to share their Python scripts. That would be great! Nope - couldn't find that either. There are just 9 demo scripts on the Graphisoft site, not exactly overwhelming.

So just for the Edwin Starr fans, Python in Archicad, huh - what is it good for? 

[BenjiDev]

I am not even sure you can register key strokes to run some functionality in  a C++ Addon in a simple way...  But I probably missed something in the docs.

EDIT: Nevermind, it is actually quite simple at least from a C++ addon. 

I even made a small addon that i think does what you want. You can rotate an element clockwise or anti-clockwise 90 degrees with custom key strokes. Not really answering your question sorry but I can share it with you if you are interseted.