Returns a new hou.Shelf object using the provided options. You must use this function to create new shelf tabs, you can’t instantiate the Shelf class directly.

Returns a new hou.ShelfSet object using the provided options. You must use this function to create new shelf sets, you can’t instantiate the ShelfSet class directly.

Returns a new hou.Tool object using the provided options. You must use this function to create new shelf tabs, you can’t instantiate the Tool class directly.

Reads a shelf file and adds any shelves and tools defined in that file to Houdini.

Reloading the shelf files found in the search path and update the shelf UI with any changed information.

Returns a dictionary mapping the internal name of every known shelf tab to a corresponding hou.Shelf object.

Returns a dictionary mapping the internal name of every known shelf tab to a corresponding hou.Shelf object.

Returns a dictionary mapping the internal name of every known tool to a corresponding hou.Tool object.

Gets a reference to a hou.Tool by its internal name.

>>> hou.shelves.tool("geometry_sphere")
<hou.Tool 'geometry_sphere'>

Prevents Houdini from automatically rewriting shelf information files until endChangeBlock is called.

Normally, many shelf editing functions and methods cause Houdini to rewrite the shelf definition files with the new information. If you're changing a lot of shelves/tools at once, it could be quite slow as each individual change is written separately.

To speed up “batch” changes, call beginChangeBlock() first, then perform the edits, then call endChangeBlock(). This delays rewriting the shelf files until the end when all changes are written at once.

# Change the icon of every tool to MISC_angry_fruit_salad.
# DON'T ACTUALLY DO THIS!

# First, turn off writing changes
hou.shelves.beginChangeBlock()
try:
    for shelf in hou.shelves.shelves().values():
        for tool in shelf.tools():
            tool.setIcon("MISC/angry_fruit_salad")
finally:
    # Finish the change block and write all the changes to disk
    hou.shelves.endChangeBlock()

Each call to beginChangeBlock must have a matching call to endChangeBlock or Houdini will never actually write your changes to disk.

See beginChangeBlock above.