mayalauncher 0.1.5

Autodesk Maya application launcher.

Maya launcher was developed for easy environment setup between maya sessions. It’s easy to use but requires some setup.

Features

• Utilize target in shortcut properties to specify arguments.

• Given paths are identified and added to the correct system variable.

• Start several maya sessions with different environment setups.

• Easily controllable through the commandline/terminal.

• Highly customizable.

Installing Maya Launcher

Maya launcher requires that you have a python version between 2.6 and 2.7. It’s not tested with other versions of python.

PyPi

mayalauncher is available through the python package as mayalauncher.

pip install mayalauncher

distutils/setuptools

git clone [e-mail]:arubertoson/maya-launcher.git
cd maya-launcher
python setup.py install

Setup

To make use of mayalauncher some setup is required and there is mainly two ways to work with it.

• through the config file.

• through system environments.

You will greatly help maya launcher if you put the Autodesk directory on your system PATH. This will let the script find all versions of maya that you have installed and automatically add them as arguments to the command line script.

How to edit your system PATH:

• Windows

• UNIX based systems

Furthermore you can specify your own system variables to use when launcing maya.

How to add system variables:

• Windows

• Unix based systems

So if you added a variable called: MAYA_DEV containing ['c:/dev;g:/dev'] and fire mayalauncher -env MAYA_DEV. The launcher will automatically traverse the paths contained in the MAYA_DEV variable and add them to their maya environment variables (MAYA_SCRIPT_PATH, PYTHONPATH … ).

Using the Config file

When running mayalauncher the first time it will not try to launch maya. It will create the config file. To edit the file use the command:

mayalauncher -e

This will probably prompt you to choose an application to open it with. Choose your preferred text editor. This is the config in its clean state.

[defaults]
executable
environment

[patterns]
exclude = __*, *.
icon_ext = xpm, png, bmp, jpeg

[environments]

[executables]

This is how it might look edited.

[defaults]
executable=2011
environment=MAYA_DEV

[patterns]
exclude = __*, *.git,
icon_ext = xpm, png, bmp, jpeg, jpg

[environments]
MAYA_USER=c:\users\<user>\documents\maya\scripts, g:/scripts, g:/tools/scripts
PYTHON_DEV=g:\dev\maya, c:\python27\lib\site-packages

[executables]
2015=%PROGRAMFILES%/Autodesk/Maya2015/bin/maya.exe
2014=%PROGRAMFILES%/Autodesk/Maya2014/bin/maya.exe
2011=%PROGRAMFILES%/Autodesk/Maya2011/bin/maya.exe

Breakdown

• defaults

These are the arguments that will be used if you don’t explicitly call them when invoking the command. Meaning

mayalauncher my_file.ma  # This translates to ...
mayalauncher my_file.ma -env MAYA_DEV -v 2011  # This.

• patterns

  • exclude are the patterns to ignore when traversing the given paths. If a path starts with **__** It will be ignored and all underlying folder structure will be ignored as well.

  • icon_ext is essentially what image extensions to look for.

• environments

If you don’t want to fiddle with your system environments this is the substitute. Paths are unlike in the system string divided by “,”.

environment_name = path1, path2, path3

• executables

Hardcoded paths to your maya executables if you prefer this way over adding your Autodesk folder to the system PATH.

2010 = /path/to/Maya2010/executable