Very Noob noob questions
-
Ok, here is my second post, but the first of many questions!:
*What are the "plug-ins" that I keep reading about? I can see it helps you in some way, but what are they and what do they do please? I am not an IT fundi, so the IT language is a bit foreign at times.
*I have used other CAD programs have drawing background. I do remember having a "pallet" when right clicking, allowing you to group your most used functions/tools on the pallet or customizing it. Does SU have something like this?More questions to follow! Thank you for the help in advance.
John
-
Like the iPhone has an app for that. At SketchUcation we've a plugin for that.
They add extra functionality. Sometimes they automated manual tasks other times they make the impossible possible.
-
Brian,
Is there a plugin for the "pallet" function I am referring to then? If so, what is it called so I can go search for it?
-
Who's Brian?
Anyway, you can't group your plugins as such on Windows. You can edit the plugins in an text editor to tweak them to suit your needs but this needs some knowledge of Ruby.
What particular plugin or task do you want to achieve?
-
@unknownuser said:
Who's Brian?
Anyway, you can't group your plugins as such on Windows. You can edit the plugins in an text editor to tweak them to suit your needs but this needs some knowledge of Ruby.
What particular plugin or task do you want to achieve?
Rich,
My apologies - I did not read your name properly and then also went and spelled it wrong. My bad, the flu medication is taking it's toll at the moment.
I want to add functions/tools to the "right click" list, instead of having to go to the toolbar every time. It speeds up matters for me. Concerning Ruby, I am not knowledgeable in any way regarding that.
-
Well if you can't code in Ruby you're gonna have difficulty changing scripts to suit your needs.
I'd recommend exploring the pluins index and seeing if any jump out at you. Then install and check it's features. If you want to change it then post in that thread. You never know the scripter may help you reconfigure it.
They are a helpful bunch...
-
Thank you.
-
Some tools will automatically add themselves to your right-click context-menu and then they become available when you have something suitable selected - e.g. SectionCutFace [a tool to 'fill-in' you section cuts] is only shown if you have a section-cut object selected and is available from nowhere else... or many of the 'HolePunch' submenu tools that facilitate multi-face hole-punching are only active when suitable objects [like suitable-cutting-component-instances or previously-punched-component-instances or their 'reveals'] are selected...
Other Plugins usually run from menus/submenus and/or perhaps their own toolbars...
If you have tools that you frequently use then it's recommended that you use 'shortcut keys' - either single letters like M for Move, L for Line and <spacebar> for the Select tool [there are several like this already built-in, an these can be adjusted too]... or you can extend your shortcuts to suit all of your needs with new letters or with modifier keys - e.g. using H for Hide[selection] and H+Shift for UN-Hide[all]... Any 'tool' available on a menu or context-menu can have a shortcut added to activate it using the Window > Preferences > Shortcut dialog tab and filtering to find it [note that some context-menu items that only become active under certain circumstances need those circumstances to be in place before you open the Preferences dialog - so for example if you wanted to shortcut to the Reverse face[s] tool then you need to have a face preselected for you to see a 'Reverse' item in the list for you to shortcut to... (Reverse and Orient are both useful shortcut keys and avoid having to right-click context-menu)]
Shortcuts are much quicker than a cluttered context-menu... and if you have more than a certain number [several hundred] of 'commands' made to add to the context-menu you can get 'graying-out' issues - so it's best to keep the number of these at a reasonable level...
-
It's not a good thing to populate the right click menu too much - it will become populated by some of the plugins anyway.
Indeed shortcuts are the way to efficient and speedy modelling. Keep the toolbar for those functions you use less frequently only.
If you want to start with plugins, there is one that allows you to build your custom toolbar.
http://sketchuptips.blogspot.com/2008/06/custom-toolbars-release-08-06-01.htmlI have it and am used to a workflow where there are three "stages" of tools:
- The ones I use most frequently: there are shortcuts for them
- the ones I use less frequently - I have this custom toolbar for them
- finally the ones that I very rarely (or almost never) use - I have them "hidden" and use the menus. Like the Freehand tool for instance.
Advertisement