Disappearing Sandbox-MAC

Chris Fullmer · 29 Aug 2013, 19:40

Those 2 toolbars are ruby extensions. They just ship with the product. Does everyone in this thread see them disappear after closing SU? We are starting to get a few complaints of this, but I can't reproduce it. For me, they are always on or off, depending how I left them the last time I had SU open.

So is it common that the DC, Sandbox, Advanced Camera tools, and Photo textures toolbars always turn themselves off on your macs?

Chris

jeff hammond · 30 Aug 2013, 01:25

@chris fullmer said:

Those 2 toolbars are ruby extensions. They just ship with the product. Does everyone in this thread see them disappear after closing SU? We are starting to get a few complaints of this, but I can't reproduce it. For me, they are always on or off, depending how I left them the last time I had SU open.

So is it common that the DC, Sandbox, Advanced Camera tools, and Photo textures toolbars always turn themselves off on your macs?

Chris

for me, those (dc,sandbox,etc) toolbars behave as expected (they remember their position and visible state)

there are a few that don't (and one of them is your perpface tools @chris )... whaat's don't (profile builder, sds,etc).. but i understand those errors(?) are on the author's side of things as opposed to sketchup.app

that said- you're able to reproduce the OP error though, right?

[EDIT]- oh.. chris- maybe the complaints are actually referring to the custom toolbar? because if you put, say, the dynamic component or other SUteam ruby (or any plugin icon) in the custom toolbar then relaunch sketchup, they won't be there.. you have to open a new window to see them..
but what happens is until the user realizes what's going on, they'll re-try to customize the toolbar which erases all the customized work they've done so far.. it's just a bad set up

jeff hammond · 30 Aug 2013, 01:42

@pbacot said:

Why can't we get all the icons and windows fixed in solid bars or trays?

my understanding is that osx doesn't really offer a way for developers to simply tie into in order to do that.. (though some apple.apps are more framed in with just one or two floating palettes (numbers.app for example... numbers also has the same style panel as entity info window etc except there's only one of them then buttons up top to switch between the different panels.. not sure if that's a sweet solution for sketchup though because sometimes people will have more than one panel visible at any given time (outliner and entity info for example))

i assume there would have to be some more intensive custom UI coding going on in order to clean up sketchup on mac.. as it was originally written, it wasn't so bad because there was just the one main toolbar then the top toolbar.. when ruby was added which led to all these individual toolbars, it sort of got out of hand imo.. (i don't know of another app which comes close to having as many things floating around as sketchup does)..

something i've seen in another app is the ability to make custom toolbars (using what i assume are native os x options).. if it were like that, we'd at least be able to have one toolbar which contains all the icons the user wants.. (or two toolbars or three etc..).. but the toolbars wouldn't be at the discretion of plugin writers and would let the user customize to suit their needs/style.. the top toolbar almost accomplishes this except it can only do a single row (osx's fault) and then there's that glitch which started this thread..

dunno.. maybe if they (su team) decide to hook up to mac's full screen mode, some nice UI improvements will come from it? because they'd be forced to (re)examine the UI during that development

pbacot · 30 Aug 2013, 01:55

I now have the OSX version of GIMP and you can put the various toolboxes and windows in a single pane with the workspace or let them float. It's easy to sort them out, load, collapse, hide and switch windows. And when you open the app again, it's the way you left it. Similar to tool icons, brushes etc. can be added and they all find a place to go.

jeff hammond · 30 Aug 2013, 02:42

@pbacot said:

I now have the OSX version of GIMP and you can put the various toolboxes and windows in a single pane with the workspace or let them float. It's easy to sort them out, load, collapse, hide and switch windows. And when you open the app again, it's the way you left it. Similar to tool icons, brushes etc. can be added and they all find a place to go.

yeah, there are definitely solutions out there.. it's just a matter of whether or not the su team is willing to dive in and come up with something better.. for me, the ruby toolbars aren't even that big of a deal (other than the ones that won't stay invisible when i close them).. i don't really have that many showing and work mainly from keystrokes.

the main problem area for me are the panels (entity info, outliner, styles, etc).. i just launched sketchup and took a screenshot of my panels.. honest- no fiddling around to make them look bad or anything like that.. this is simply the state they were in after my last su session:

they just get out of hand so quickly.. they're supposed to stick together but far too often, i'll expand one and instead of the rest of them sticking to the bottom and moving accordingly, the freshly expanded one will un-attach and cover the rest of them.. so i then have to move those out of the way in order to get to something underneath etc.. after a relatively short amount of drawing time, they're a mess-- even if i start a session with them completely organized.

mariocha · 30 Aug 2013, 13:24

@chris fullmer said:

So is it common that the DC, Sandbox, Advanced Camera tools, and Photo textures toolbars always turn themselves off on your macs?
Chris

Hi Chris, for me it's been like that for a quite while now, and today still on 3 different Macs.
I will try and ask around other Mac users.
In fact, all ruby extensions show this behaviour here.
For my main ones, I play with the "toolbar" code (adding ##) in the ruby script until they always stay on.

Chris Fullmer · 30 Aug 2013, 13:55

Very interesting Mario and Jeff. There is a good example between the two of you, Mario has all his ruby toolbars close every time he closes SU, Jeff does not. I can't see it either, but we keep getting reports of it from users and developers. At this point, we can't figure out how to make it reproducible and I'm having a hard time tracking it down. Driven has done some good background investigation into it, as it affects him as well. But so far it is still eluding us

pbacot · 30 Aug 2013, 14:49

Jeff,

That issue with the windows seems the most important and annoying. I use two monitor setups and I realize there's not a lot to be done without Apple stepping in, but when they get pushed about the monitor change--if they'd just stick together. I always want the entity window at top--the rest I have given up keeping a standard order and just sort them every session as I need them. At least SU nicely re-sizes the work space window to accommodate the dialog position when you place them against the side. I have other apps that can't do that.

Peter

mariocha · 30 Aug 2013, 14:52

Yes, those SU toolbars are always off at start. (ruby extensions)
But the toolbars of added plugins are always on OR off, until I play with the script.
For instance LIghtUp and Subsmooth are always ON, but
Fredoscale, Keyframe Animationand TOS are always OFF,
to name just a few.
There are a lot of different ways of coding the toolbar display in the scripts out there.

Updt: Even Fredo's newly updated plugins still are off at launch. Maybe this has to be settled with somebody at Apple.

Updt: Looks like a Toolbar last_state is always set to 0 at launch. Is it possible that the TB (or it's variable) is recreated at each launch ? I'm no coder ...

p.s.: Let's stick to the floating toolbars for now.
And address the mac top toolbar later since the problem is half solved (by opening a new window).

mariocha · 13 Sept 2013, 18:55

Here is, hopefully, another clue.
The toolbar of Flattery is always on,
and that of Mirror is always off.

Ckeched with a friend, he has same trouble.

Could it be in there ? User/Library/Saved Application State

jeff hammond · 14 Sept 2013, 02:09

@mariocha said:

Could it be in there ? User/Library/Saved Application State

nah.. that's where osx stores the last state of an application in case you reboot or a crash / power failure... the apps will open back up with the same files open etc..

it would be in your preferences .plist

user/ library/ preferences/ com.google.sketchup(version).plist

all the possible toolbars will have an entry: SketchUp.Toolbars.Curviloft.Visible then a string type 1 for on or 0 for off

with su2013, the plist is:
user/ library/ preferences/ com.sketchup.SketchUp.plist

that one has a single expandable entry called Toolbars.. all the possible toolbars are listed under this single entry then a number type 1-on 0-off

jeff hammond · 14 Sept 2013, 02:14

fwiw, you can close sketchup then trash (or move) your preferences .plist then relaunch su..

sketchup will create a new one upon relaunching but it will act as if it's the first time you installed it (i.e.- everything reverts to default).. all of the toolbars should be visible upon this first launch (stacked on top of each other in the top left corner)

move it to the desktop then relaunch sketchup.. if it fixes the problem then great.. if not, trash the new one then put the old .plist back in there so you don't have to set everything up again.

mariocha · 15 Sept 2013, 15:21

Hi Jeff,
I did more than trash de prefs, I deleted all the app and its files (with an app delete soft).
Re-installed, only Solar North is visible at first launch, but then no more. And same bug for other palettes.
Looked at the com.sketchup.SketchUp.plist file, all toolbar integers are set to 1, indeed.
But do you mean that you do not have this bug on your OS X?

jeff hammond · 15 Sept 2013, 16:14

@mariocha said:

But do you mean that you do not have this bug on your OS X?

right.. all is functioning normally* on my computers (a macpro and a mbp).. 10.7 on the mp & 10.8 on the mbp..
su 8 pro and sketchup make2013 on both

*normal meaning the toolbars remember their on/off state between sessions (except for a few due to the ruby writer's coding- skindigo, profile builder, sds, perp face tools)

mariocha · 15 Sept 2013, 17:20

@unknownuser said:

right.. all is functioning normally* on my computers (a macpro and a mbp).. 10.7 on the mp & 10.8 on the mbp..
su 8 pro and sketchup make2013 on both

Oh ! I did not realized that. I thought you also had the problem.
Mountain Lion ? 10.8.5 ?

jeff hammond · 15 Sept 2013, 17:30

@mariocha said:

Oh ! I did not realized that. I thought you also had the problem.
Mountain Lion ? 10.8.5 ?

no, no problem here.. and apparently the su team can't reproduce it either.

im on 10.8.4 but .5 was just released so i'm assuming you had the problem with earlier version on mLion as well.

just out of curiosity, what do you have the gatekeeper preference set to? (System prefs -> Security & Privacy -> General )

Allow applications downloaded from
?

mine is set to 'Anywhere'

mariocha · 15 Sept 2013, 18:54

yes on 10.8.4 as well.

"Allow applications downloaded from" is set to -Mac App store and identified devs..
euh.. why