Add tk-shotgun actions for Playlist or Custom Entity

JoshBurnell · March 20, 2020, 11:56pm

Hey, how do we add tk-shotgun actions for new entities (e.g. a Playlist or a Custom Entity)?

i.e. How do we add Shotgun Toolkit actions to the “Playlist Actions” dropdown on the Playlist detail page in Shotgun?

I found this write-up on the forum. It appears to lay out adding a custom entity to the Shotgun Desktop tools, but doesn’t include adding actions to tk-shotgun.

Attempting to do this for the Playlist Entity, I did the following…

Create config/env/playlist.yml to match config/env/version.yml
Add settings.tk-shotgun.playlist entry to config/env/includes/settings/tk-shotgun.yml

However, when I go to the Playlist detail page, there’s nothing new listed in the Playlist Actions menu.

Any advice?

tannaz · March 21, 2020, 12:42am

Hey Josh!

It’s on my to-do list to add this to the documentation for Toolkit browser integration, but there are some limitations to which entities can have right-click menus assigned to them:

Either they have to be part of this hard-coded list:

github.com

shotgunsoftware/tk-framework-desktopserver/blob/master/python/tk_framework_desktopserver/shotgun/constants.py#L37-L52


# The base set of supported entity types. All others are provided
# by the PublishedFile entity's schema, where we pull the list of
# entity types that it can be linked to. Out of the box, this will
# include things like Asset, Shot, Episode, and Level.
#
# Once combined with the PublishedFile's entity link types, this
# forms the list of entity types that we provide action menu items
# for. Any entity type requesting action menu items that is not in
# the whitelist is informed that none will be provided.
BASE_ENTITY_TYPE_WHITELIST = set([
    "Project",
    PUBLISHED_FILE_ENTITY,
    "Sequence",
    "Task",
    "Version",
])

Or, they have to have Publishes enabled on the entity in your Site Prefs (under the “Entities” header):

So if you go ahead and enable publishes on your entity, the right-click menus should show up.

Hope that helps! Let us know if you have any other questions.

JoshBurnell · March 23, 2020, 4:33pm

The Playlist entity doesn’t show the “Enable Pipeline Toolkit/File Publishes on this Entity” checkbox.

It seems like a pretty foundational Entity for people. Is there any reason it isn’t in the BASE_ENTITY_TYPE_WHITELIST by default? Can it be added?

Ahuge · March 23, 2020, 9:48pm

Hey Josh, I am working on the same thing as you right now, I think that you can create an env called “shotgun_playlist.yml” that it should pick up in tk-shotgun. That’s what the code seems to say but I haven’t much luck with getting it actually working.

JoshBurnell · March 23, 2020, 11:29pm

Thanks, @Ahuge. I tried that, too, and had a similar lack of results.

@tannaz, I created a local fork of tk-framework-desktopserver and updated the constants.py file as you described. (Then, I added the framework to my config’s local bundle-cache and updated the frameworks.yml, as expected.) However, I didn’t see my new menu actions in the Shotgun UI.

Any idea what I’m doing wrong?

philip.scadding · March 27, 2020, 9:44am

Hi @JoshBurnell the custom framework would need to be updated on the site config, as SG Desktop starts the browser integration outside of a project.

Do you have a site config already which you can add it to?
If not you would add a PipelineConfiguration entity on your shotgun site with no Project set and uses your modified version of the tk-config-basic.

JoshBurnell · March 27, 2020, 3:35pm

I have multiple PipelineConfiguration entities on my Shotgun Site with no Project set (e.g. “Master” and “Staging”). Which one will be used as the site config?

philip.scadding · March 27, 2020, 3:36pm

this might help:

JoshBurnell · March 31, 2020, 4:21pm

Okay, I got it to work. For posterity, here’s what I did:

Remove myself from the permissions list of all the non-Project Pipeline Configurations
Create a distributed Pipeline Configuration that isn’t associated with any Projects
Add tk-framework-desktopserver from https://github.com/shotgunsoftware/tk-framework-desktopserver/tree/v1.3.9 to the new Pipeline Configuration’s local bundle_cache
Add Playlist to the whitelist in tk_framework_desktopserver/shotgun/constants.py
Create env/shotgun_playlist.yml (Use env/version.yml as a template)
Update env/includes/frameworks.yml to use the local tk-framework-desktopserver
Now, in your Project Pipeline Configuration, add a Playlist action section to env/includes/settings/tk-shotgun.yml

Simple!

Ahuge · January 18, 2021, 7:34pm

Looks like @oues has started a PR here that should implement your fix @JoshBurnell

Hopefully this can get merged in.
Thanks @oues

Halil · August 9, 2021, 2:15am

Yikes, this was a nice big gotcha for me recently when we had the need to enable an action on a Delivery entity. I was trying to find any an all docs on this matter but the main place for this info seemed to be lacking this information. This thread was the only hit, that had the bingo moment.

If this is ever seen, I recommend the docs here are extended to include toolkit based action menus / apps / tk-shotgun commands, and this fun little fact is mentioned.

prakarrendee · March 7, 2022, 6:29pm

Hi @philip.scadding, I am doing the exact same thing as Josh and I am unable to get the app show up in the context menu for a Playlist entity. I am using the latest version (v1.5.2) for tk-framework-desktopserver and I see that the Playlist has now been added to the constants. Right clicking for the context menu on a Playlist entity on shotgrid does not even trigger anything whereas if I add the app to Version entity, I can see the pick_environment.py being called and I see the Version entity as the context.

I have done all the other updates - created a playlist.yml (we didn’t have this before), added an entry in the tk-shotgun.yml, and created the add.yml with all of the correct details. The app shows up for a Version entity, and if I add it to the Project entity, it shows up in the Project Actions drop-down as well.

Is there anything else I am missing?