ComponentDefinitionRef

A lightweight placeholder for a ComponentDefinition that hasn’t been fully loaded yet.

When you create a component definition inside a SketchupOperation, the API returns a ComponentDefinitionRef immediately, before SketchUp has finished processing it. You can pass these refs to other operation methods (like adding geometry to the definition or creating instances), but if you need the full ComponentDefinition instance, you can request it with entityForRef().

Think of a ref as a “claim ticket” — it guarantees a component definition will exist after the operation commits, but it doesn’t carry the definition’s properties (name, entities, instances, etc.) yet. A ref is only valid inside the performOperation callback that created it — do not return it or use it after the operation commits.

Example

let model = await SketchUpApi.getActiveModel();
let { Transformation } = SketchUpApi;

await model.performOperation(async op => {
  const defRef = op.createDefinition('Table');
  // Add a tabletop face to the definition
  op.createFace(defRef, [
    [0, 0, 30], [48, 0, 30],
    [48, 30, 30], [0, 30, 30],
  ]);
  // Place an instance so it's visible
  op.createInstance(
    model, defRef, Transformation.translation([0, 0, 0])
  );
  const def = await op.entityForRef(defRef);
  console.log(def.name);
  // => "Table"
}, 'Create a table component');

See

Properties

sketchupId

readonly sketchupId: SketchupId

type

readonly type: Component = EntityType.ComponentDefinition

Accessors

typeName

Get Signature

get typeName(): string

Returns a named variant of the type field.

Since

SDK 2.35.0

Returns

string

Methods

toString()

toString(): string

Returns

string