SU 9 Wishlist

DesertRaven · 14 Jan 2013, 19:30

Real circles, curves & arcs that aren't faceted unless you choose them to be. Yet still with the ability to choose x number of snap points.

Exactly, this is long over due! And before anyone cry's out to many commands, this feature can be packed into the existing circles commands as an option. Or it could be part of the construction lines,(circular and arched construction lines) to be able to get precise intersections of circles, without having to make circles more complex.

And while we are at it how's about fixing that offset BUG when offsetting arches?

jeff hammond · 15 Jan 2013, 00:19

honestly, at this point, i just wish they'd fix some things that aren't (or never have been) working properly..
(i guess most or all of this is mac related but...)

• material browser -- sketchup uses the osx color picker but instead of adding its own palette, it hijacks an existing one... the one that displays a list.. and the devs don't allow for a list of materials/colors to be shown so we can only see thumbnails (or hover for a popup which will display the actual name).. fail.

• launch sequence affects the display of our custom toolbar.. if you have a custom toolbar, you have to open another new window after launching in order for the icons to display.. those icons should be present in the first window created..

• this is probably on the ruby writers side but it seems as if sketchup itself could make a sweeping trap to prevent it.. certain plugins will 'do something' to a fresh window which means we can't just close a blank document without being prompted 'do you want to save the changes...?' .. 'as?'
(so this compounded with the prior bullet = immediate frustration upon launching sketchup..)
so hey.. if the user hasn't done something to the file then obviously they don't want to save the changes made..

•thumbnails.. come on already.. check out collada files in quick view (select a .dae and push the space bar).. give us that with .skp.. or at the very least, a shot of the model.. 512px minimum if not more.. so what if the file size goes up 100kb or whatever

• the window panels (entity info etc) could use some love.. (but then again, they aren't exactly broken so i guess i'll leave them out of this wish list.. the other stuff is broken though)

• fix the printing.. (and not 'well, use layout for that'.. why?).. the sketchup printing setup is flawed.. bottom line. (for instance, it ignores wether or not a specified printer/paper has borders when doing it's scaling calculations.. it treats everything as if it's a borderless print but then you go to print and it spills out onto multiple sheets even though the sizing/scale are correct for a single page--- amongst a few other things.. too long to list at this point)

i'll probably edit/add to this in a minute but for now...

(add) • full screen-- why exactly hasn't sketchup been hooked up to full screen yet? [edit] oh wait.. that's a wish-- not a fix ..srry

(add) alpbehizeta when appropriate ..(prefs->extensions for instance)

i mean, i think my 'real' wishes are too unrealistic and/or in a direction i think the devs are trying to steer clear from.. and i'm cool with that.. i understand.. i still have a lot of uses for sketchup and i'm becoming ok with the idea that 1 app can't do it all..

but the app could certainly use a tidy up of the existing functions/features/controls.. looking back to 2005 or so, there's no way i could of imagined that some of these things would still be present in the app..

pbacot · 15 Jan 2013, 00:32

"
• the window panels (entity info etc) could use some love.. (but then again, they aren't exactly broken so i guess i'll leave them out of this wish list.. the other stuff is broken though)"

How about a way to anchor the damn things (same for layout). I always have to clean them up. I guess it is "un-Maclike" to be so structured--but I think I would rather see a single-window approach instead of this mess. AND a way to anchor plugin icons on screen too.

Have you also given up on circles Jeff?

jeff hammond · 15 Jan 2013, 01:26

@pbacot said:

Have you also given up on circles Jeff?

haha.. i don't know yet..
that other thread just fired up again so we'll see if more awareness gets out.. but me on a solo mission? jbacus just sweeps me under the rug

jeff hammond · 15 Jan 2013, 01:48

@pbacot said:

but I think I would rather see a single-window approach instead of this mess. AND a way to anchor plugin icons on screen too.

nah.. i don't think that's the way..

what needs to happen is a way for us to handle toolbars better.. 10 plugins isn't something i'd consider 'holy cow.. that guy has a ton of plugins'...
but the way sketchup deals with that is it pukes 10 new toolbars out there which is potentially 50 new icons floating around.. with no way of controlling them except one at a time..

we should be able to manage our toolbars.. instead of 10 new toolbars in my example, they should be able to be placed in one standard floating toolbar.. or two floating toolbars.. or whatever configuration you like.. with the 'docked' toolbar being the standard one on top of the screen..

[EDIT] or better yet, our main floating toolbar can have one main icon for, say, fredoscale which does (x) function when clicked.. or we can click and hold to expose the other 8 icons and/or tear it off into it's separate toolbar if desired..
The standard osx toolbar (at the top of the window) is capable of this behavior as well.. (as in, these aren't things that need to be custom coded per se.. OS X already offers them to developers)
[/edit]

this isn't pipedream stuff.. i've recently seen something very similar added to another app.. with one guy developing it for the time being.. using all OS X panels/button/UI.. and it's good..
sketchup's setup isn't
(especially if it has you wanting some windows ui just to get it under control.. it's the design of the app that's letting us down here.. not the design of the OS)

[EdIT] oh.. and be careful what you wish for.. i'm pretty sure the windows user's toolbar problems are even worse than on mac

for the -just throwing ideas out there- category..
the windows could use one of these panels as found in numbers.app..

all the different Window options can be icons at the top.. (and if i context click a selection and choose 'soften/smooth edges' the appropriate window open in this panel.) it becomes one floating panel to deal with instead of those 10 iffy/jerky things being used now that sometimes stick together, sometimes don't, sometimes disappear, sometimes won't fully expand or collapse....

that said, some people might like to keep the entity info panel open at all times while also being able to use another panel so maybe this style wouldn't work for everyone.. but it's worth discussing

Gaieus · 15 Jan 2013, 08:54

@desertraven said:

...Or it could be part of the construction lines,(circular and arched construction lines) to be able to get precise intersections of circles, without having to make circles more complex...

Exactly. At least construction geometry should have this feature.

thomthom · 15 Jan 2013, 09:03

@gaieus said:

@desertraven said:

...Or it could be part of the construction lines,(circular and arched construction lines) to be able to get precise intersections of circles, without having to make circles more complex...

Exactly. At least construction geometry should have this feature.

+1e20

porch_unplugged · 28 Jan 2013, 15:09

apologies if this has been mentioned before, but i'd like an option to turn off an objects layer without having to scroll down the little (i know i can make it as big as i want) layers window.

e.g. if i wanted to turn off the roof layer, i could just right click it and choose 'turn off objects layer'.

I'm working on a fairly complicated model with a lot of layers and it's starting to bug me.

thomthom · 28 Jan 2013, 15:19

@porch_unplugged said:

apologies if this has been mentioned before, but i'd like an option to turn off an objects layer without having to scroll down the little (i know i can make it as big as i want) layers window.

e.g. if i wanted to turn off the roof layer, i could just right click it and choose 'turn off objects layer'.

I'm working on a fairly complicated model with a lot of layers and it's starting to bug me.

Hide Layer by Pick
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36558

porch_unplugged · 28 Jan 2013, 16:30

@thomthom said:

Hide Layer by Pick
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36558

thanks, but it doesn't seem to work quite the way I'm looking for. Everything I draw is on layer 0, and reading through your plugin thread, it seems that it doesn't apply to groups or components which would be on the designated layer.

thanks anyway.

TIG · 28 Jan 2013, 16:47

You have misunderstood the instructions.
It will work just fine and 'hide' the layer of ANY selected object[s] etc [or other methods]...
However, you will need to change the view [e.g. orbit] to refresh the view and see the changes, otherwise it will remain unchanged until you do something else which can be disconcerting... that is unless you [or Didier] were to add something like model.active_view.refresh near to the end of every method, just after the changes have been done [I have done this myself on my own copy]...

porch_unplugged · 29 Jan 2013, 12:39

Ok, I just tried it again, and got it to work, but it only works on components, not on groups.

TIG · 29 Jan 2013, 12:49

No it works on selected components and groups - I just [re]tried it.
If you are talking about picking objects inside a group... then what you select has to be in the active context, so then you need to edit the group before picking ?!

porch_unplugged · 29 Jan 2013, 12:55

thanks for the reply.

I set up a test. i made to separate identical boxes, the geometry of one i made into a group, the geometry of the other i made into a component. i selected both, and through the entity info window, i changed them to layer "test". selected the 'hide layer by pick' tool from the tools menu, clicked on the group, nothing happened, clicked on the component, layer turned off.

porch_unplugged · 29 Jan 2013, 12:56

all geometry was drawn on layer 0 (which is my current layer)

Dave R · 29 Jan 2013, 13:00

Why don't you post your SKP file?

porch_unplugged · 29 Jan 2013, 13:16

I closed sketchup without saving the test so I had to draw it out again. but now that i have, it's not working for components any more. BUT... i have a feeling when i was messing around in the original test, i might have changed all the geometry in the component to layer "test", and that's why it was working for the component.

anyway, it's not working for either groups or components for me now. apologies if i'm missing something glaringly obvious.

hide layer by pick test.skp

TIG · 29 Jan 2013, 13:21

I suspect you are using a different version of the Layer-Manager from mine [or using the same one incorrectly].
My one only works on preselected objects [and does so faultlessly].

You speak of 'picked' - are you activating the tool then picking objects ?
With my installation: you preselect the objects and activate the tool - their layer[s] gets 'hidden'...

porch_unplugged · 29 Jan 2013, 13:42

@tig said:

I suspect you are using a different version of the Layer-Manager from mine [or using the same one incorrectly].
My one only works on preselected objects [and does so faultlessly].

You speak of 'picked' - are you activating the tool then picking objects ?
With my installation: you preselect the objects and activate the tool - their layer[s] gets 'hidden'...

didn't know there was other layer managers out there!

I was activating the tool then selecting the object, but tried preselecting and then activating the tool, but to no avail.

porch_unplugged · 29 Jan 2013, 13:49

hold the phone. I got Didier's layer manager toolbar, and it's doing the job. thanks for the help anyways.