Here’s how to use a pop-up (transient) explorer to allow users to select multiple objects in the scene.

In this approach, you have a text box and a button.

The OnClicked callback for the button would use OpenTransientExplorer to pop up an explorer where the user can select multiple objects. OpenTransientExplorer returns a collection, so you can store that in a string parameter.

null = None
false = 0
true = 1

def XSILoadPlugin( in_reg ):
	in_reg.Author = "blairs"
	in_reg.Name = "MyMultiSelectTestPlugin"
	in_reg.Major = 1
	in_reg.Minor = 0

	in_reg.RegisterProperty("MyMultiSelectTest")
	#RegistrationInsertionPoint - do not remove this line

	return true

def XSIUnloadPlugin( in_reg ):
	strPluginName = in_reg.Name
	Application.LogMessage(str(strPluginName) + str(" has been unloaded."),constants.siVerbose)
	return true

def MyMultiSelectTest_Define( in_ctxt ):
	oCustomProperty = in_ctxt.Source
	oCustomProperty.AddParameter2("Objects",constants.siString,"",null,null,null,null,constants.siClassifUnknown,constants.siPersistable + constants.siKeyable)
	return true

# Tip: Use the "Refresh" option on the Property Page context menu to 
# reload your script changes and re-execute the DefineLayout callback.
def MyMultiSelectTest_DefineLayout( in_ctxt ):
	oLayout = in_ctxt.Source
	oLayout.Clear()
	oLayout.AddRow()
	oLayout.AddItem("Objects")
	oLayout.AddButton("Explore")
	oLayout.EndRow()
	return true

def MyMultiSelectTest_OnInit( ):
	Application.LogMessage("MyMultiSelectTest_OnInit called",constants.siVerbose)

def MyMultiSelectTest_OnClosed( ):
	Application.LogMessage("MyMultiSelectTest_OnClosed called",constants.siVerbose)

def MyMultiSelectTest_Param_OnChanged( ):
	Application.LogMessage("MyMultiSelectTest_Param_OnChanged called",constants.siVerbose)
	oParam = PPG.Param
	paramVal = oParam.Value
	Application.LogMessage(str("New value: ") + str(paramVal),constants.siVerbose)

def MyMultiSelectTest_Param1_OnChanged( ):
	Application.LogMessage("MyMultiSelectTest_Param1_OnChanged called",constants.siVerbose)
	oParam = PPG.Param1
	paramVal = oParam.Value
	Application.LogMessage(str("New value: ") + str(paramVal),constants.siVerbose)

def MyMultiSelectTest_Explore_OnClicked( ):
	Application.LogMessage("MyMultiSelectTest_Explore_OnClicked called",constants.siVerbose)
	sel = Application.OpenTransientExplorer( Application.ActiveProject.ActiveScene.Passes, constants.siSEFilterAllNodesNoParams, 0, False, True )
	PPG.Objects.Value = sel

For testing, I use the Plugin Tree (in the Plugin Manager) to create an instance of the property: just right-click the custom property and click Create.

That runs this command:

Application.SIAddProp("MyMultiSelectTest", "", "siDefaultPropagation", "", "")

If you want to find the groups that contain an object, you have to look through the Owners collection. Look for owners of type = “#group”. Note that you can filter the Owners collection by type, but when you filter by “#group”, you’ll also get layers and partitions, because they are types of groups.

import win32com.client
oGroups = win32com.client.Dispatch( "XSI.Collection" )

o = Application.Selection(0)

oOwners = o.Owners.Filter( "#Group" )

for g in oOwners:
	if g.Type == "#Group":
		#Application.LogMessage( ''.join([g.FullName, ' ', g.Type] ) )
		oGroups.Add( g )

Application.LogMessage( oGroups.GetAsText() )

If you had a naming convention for your groups, you could use the third argument to Filter. For example, if all group names started with “grp”, then could do this:

from win32com.client import constants

object = Application.Selection(0)

# Filter by type and then by name
groups = object.Owners.Filter( "#Group", '', "grp*" )
print groups.GetAsText()

# OR filter by family and then by name
groups = object.Owners.Filter( '', constants.siGroupFamily, "grp*" )
print groups.GetAsText()

You can use xsibatch to execute a script:

	xsibatch -processing -script %TEMP%\test.js 

The -processing flag tells xsibatch to run without a license (you can do this for anything that does not involve rendering).
The -script flag specifies the full path the script file.

If the script file contains functions, you can specify the name of the function to execute with the -main flag. For example, if the .js file contained a function named “test”:

	xsibatch -processing -script %TEMP%\test1.js -main test 

If the main function takes arguments, you can specify them with the -args flag. For example, if the function is defined like this (in JScript)

	function test( sPath, sList, nValue )
	{
		// [body]
	}

then you would specify the arguments like this on the xsibatch command line:

	-args -sPath "%TEMP%" -sList "X,Y,Z" -nValue 22

Putting it all together, the xsibatch command line would look like this:

	xsibatch -processing -script %TEMP%\test1.js -main test -args -sPath "%TEMP%" -sList "X,Y,Z" -nValue 22

Argument values are passed in as strings, and any quotation marks are stripped off.

Here’s a simple example of a test.js:

function test( sPath, sList, nValue )
{
	LogMessage( sPath );
	LogMessage( sList );
	LogMessage( nValue );
	LogMessage( typeof(nValue) );
}

The xsibatch command:

xsibatch -processing -script %TEMP%\test1.js -main test -args -sPath "%TEMP%" -sList "X,Y,Z" -nValue 22

And the output:

=======================================================
 Autodesk Softimage 9.5.184.0
=======================================================

License information: using [Processing]
COMMAND: -processing -script C:\Users\blairs\AppData\Local\Temp\test.js -main test -args -sPath "C:\Users\blairs\AppData\Local\Temp" -sList "X,Y,Z" -nValue 22
// INFO : C:\Users\blairs\AppData\Local\Temp
// INFO : X,Y,Z
// INFO : 22
// INFO : string

The state of the buttons on the Transform panel are saved in the 3D_TRANSFO_REFERENTIAL_CHANGED preference, which is a bitfield.

So, for example, to enable the Ref manipulation mode, you would do this:

SetUserPref(
	"3D_TRANSFO_REFERENTIAL_CHANGED",
	GetUserPref("3D_TRANSFO_REFERENTIAL_CHANGED") | 3 );

This would turn on the Ref mode, and leave the COG, Prop, and Sym options untouched.

If you simply did this:

SetUserPref( "3D_TRANSFO_REFERENTIAL_CHANGED", 3 );

that would reset the COG and Sym options.

Turn on COG:

SetUserPref(
 	"3D_TRANSFO_REFERENTIAL_CHANGED",
 	GetUserPref("3D_TRANSFO_REFERENTIAL_CHANGED") | 16 );

Turn off COG:

SetUserPref(
 	"3D_TRANSFO_REFERENTIAL_CHANGED",
 	GetUserPref("3D_TRANSFO_REFERENTIAL_CHANGED") & ~16 );

Another example:

// Turn off all
SetUserPref( "3D_TRANSFO_REFERENTIAL_CHANGED", 0 );

// Turn on Local and COG
SetUserPref(
 	"3D_TRANSFO_REFERENTIAL_CHANGED",
 	GetUserPref("3D_TRANSFO_REFERENTIAL_CHANGED") | (16 | 2) );

You can use Alt+NumPad numbers to see what gets logged when the different buttons are selected.
The SDK documentation also includes a page for the Manipulation Mode Values.

Before Softimage 2011, we used to use FindObjects() with a shader CLSID to find all instances of a shader. But as of Softimage 2011, all shaders have the same CLSID, so you have to use the ProgID to find all instances of a certain type of shader.

// Find all Color_correction shader nodes

var sProgID = "Softimage.sib_color_correction.1.0"

var oShaderDef = Application.GetShaderDef( sProgID ) ;
oEnum = new Enumerator( oShaderDef.ShaderInstances ) ;
for (;!oEnum.atEnd();oEnum.moveNext() )
{
	var oShaderInstance = oEnum.item() ;
	LogMessage( oShaderInstance.fullname );
}

You can find the ProgID of a shader using the SDK Explorer: