Polygon Tool

dmorong · 18 May 2009, 17:38

I have not seen this elsewhere on the forum but it may be old news. When I use the polygon tool in v.7 I cannot edit it after creation, either the number of sides or the radius. Entering changes in the measurements box and hitting enter has no effect. You can still modify it in entity info., but not in measurements. Still works in 6, what happened in 7?
this is the case on every mac in our computer lab, so it is not my machine.

David
Mac os 10.5.6
Sketchup Version 7.0.10248

jeff hammond · 18 May 2009, 19:15

you have to enter the info prior to the final click.
select where you'd like the center then enter '5s' then enter for a pentagon... '8s' for an octagon etc..
for the radius, just type the length then enter..

once you click it to it's final position (the second mouse click with the tool), you have to edit it via the entity info box

Chris Fullmer · 18 May 2009, 21:22

No, I'm able to change it after I have made the final click by just typing in 12s or 3s or 40s, etc.

Try it again. See if perhaps your just doing the sequence of clicking and typing incorrectly?

Chris

jeff hammond · 18 May 2009, 22:38

hmm.. yeah, i just tried again with the same results. the OP is a mac user so maybe this is a new OS X bug (because i too remember doing it the other way with earlier versions.)
fwiw, i'm pretty sure i'm doing the typing correctly because it's the same as editing a circle after it's been placed (36s, 10' for radius etc.).. that still works fine.

Chris Fullmer · 18 May 2009, 22:41

Interesting. That does sound like it could be a Mac bug then. Does the circle tool behave the same way? Or is it just the polygon tool?

Chris

jeff hammond · 18 May 2009, 22:43

no, the circle tool works properly.. i can place a circle (2nd click with the circle tool) then change the amount of segments and the radius via the VCB...
that's how the polygon tool should work but it's not happening anymore... the info has to be entered before the second click now which seems kind of odd.

Gaieus · 19 May 2009, 00:10

Well, indeed it sounds like bug then. On my PC it works as intended (and has always worked). I can type say 8s then hit Enter then type 500 and hit enter again (for 500 cm radius) etc. after each other and it still works.

Could a couple of more Mac users confirm this? It would be worth a nice, fat bug report

thomthom · 19 May 2009, 06:15

Just tried this on my Mac Mini;
I can set the sides of circles after drawing it, but I can not set the sides of Polygons.
I can set the sides before I set the radius though.

jeff hammond · 19 May 2009, 13:39

@thomthom said:

Just tried this on my Mac Mini;
I can set the sides of circles after drawing it, but I can not set the sides of Polygons.
I can set the sides before I set the radius though.

right, you can change the amount of sides but it has to be done before the second mouse click.
after the polygon is set in place, you can't edit it at all via the VCB (sides or radius).. if you select the polygon then open the entity info box, you can change the amount of sides and radius from there but you should be able to do all of that via the VCB while drawing the polygon in the same way i can still do with the circle tool.. in earlier versions it worked that way and judging by the responses here, it still works that way on PCs but not macs..

[i didn't notice this earlier because i guess i never use the polygon tool.. if i relied on it more often though, this new 'feature' would be annoying]

dmatho · 4 Sept 2013, 12:22

I found this out; can someone else please confirm (tried on two PCs, on Windows 7):
After selecting the Polygon Tool, enter a number of sides other than the default (6), the new value is entered in the Measurements box (in response to "Sides") but the tool stays put at the default 6 sides.

What does work: enter the value (e.g. 8), add a space (spacebar), enter the letter s, and then press "Enter". The Polygon Tool then works as it should, but that's not what's described in the Help/Knowledge Center

Cheers,

. Diego .

Dave R · 4 Sept 2013, 12:54

@dmatho said:

I found this out; can someone else please confirm (tried on two PCs, on Windows 7):
After selecting the Polygon Tool, enter a number of sides other than the default (6), the new value is entered in the Measurements box (in response to "Sides") but the tool stays put at the default 6 sides.

What does work: enter the value (e.g. 8), add a space (spacebar), enter the letter s, and then press "Enter". The Polygon Tool then works as it should, but that's not what's described in the Help/Knowledge Center

Cheers,

. Diego .

It doesn't work that way for me. All I have to do is type the number of sides, e.g. 8, and hit Enter to get it to change.

TIG · 4 Sept 2013, 21:11

As with a Circle.
Click to locate the center.
With a Polygon, you can type the radius+<enter> - e.g. 123+<enter>, for 123 units radius... AND then type the number of sides followed by s+<enter> - e.g. 12s+<enter>, for 12 sides.
Alternatively you can change the settings in the reverse order... type the sides as 12s+<enter> THEN the radius as 123+<enter>...
Whichever order you do the two typed values, the second step must be done while you are still in the Polygon tool, if you exit to another tool - by perhaps pressing <spacebar> for 'Select' - it WILL cause the Polygon tool to freeze its output at the current [default] values and not see the second value you enter...

It's not rocket science.

PS: As W03Dan says, you can enter the number of sides without the 's' IF you have not yet picked an insertion point and do it as the very first thing.

Wo3Dan · 5 Sept 2013, 14:41

@dmatho said:

... The Polygon Tool then works as it should, but that's not what's described in the Help/Knowledge Center...

I don't know what the help center says but the story is:
Either with the 'Circle' tool, the 'Polygon' tool or the 'Arc' tool, when first selecting the tool you see "sides" as the expected input at the 'Measurements' box.
Only at this time you can omit the s for sides. Right after the first click you'll need to include that s when you would like to change the number of sides used by these tools. You'll see radius (or length/bulge for arcs) but this is ignored due to adding the s. The order of entering radius and sides does not matter. The included s is important for SketchUp.
After drawing the entity you can still change your mind for both radius or sides.
With the arc you can still change bulge or radius (include r) and sides (include s) in any order.
After selecting anything else the story is over.