Layout move tool

TreblD · 15 Feb 2016, 07:59

Hi Im struggling with the Layout move tool. I try to move an object in LO and the magic hand appears, and I end up rotating it, then the 4 arrows appear and I end up resizing it. How can I just move it? is there a key I hold down? Its probably a simple answer, Ive googled it but no luck. Thanks in advance. Mal

JQL · 15 Feb 2016, 10:14

Unfortunatelly you're probably doing the right thing... but move tool in Layout is a bad move!

You have to grab an element you're trying to move and dragclick on it (press leftclick and don't let go, move around the mouse and place your stuff, release the mouse button only when it's in place.)

It's cubersome... I've (we've) bragged about it for long now!

The thing is that if you select the objects a box and a dot with a line on the center appears. Those are for (lack of) control:

As with sketchup you can first move/copy/rotate/scale and then use a value using VCB.1. Unlike sketchup where you can click once to perform these operations and then feel confident you're not breaking them, in LO you have to hold your mouse for everything until the operation is finished1. For scaling, drag on the side/top/bottom arrows. Scale on the direction you want and then you can type a value like 2 for twice the size or .5 for half the size.
For moving, rotating and scaling accuratelly there's a middle crosshair that you can drag into any point on drawing and you can place it there, then if you move around your objects that point can be used as reference for accuracy.1. Beware that there is a smaller dot near to the circle on the center and that is meant to use for rotating... unfortunatelly you cannot infer that rotation, only give it precise values.1. As in skecthup you can copy with move, however, unlike sketchup you must use every hand in your body to do so. I guess you have two but if you'd have 3 it would be easier... I hope you have at least two, but as you might be aware some people do not (I'm not being dramatic here, some people go skatting and break their arm so they can no longer work with Layout...)1. Wich brings us to the move tool. You have to drag, accuratelly place, and be careful... Zoom in and out so you miss the arrows and dongle in the middle or you'll mess your drawing. Then keep your finger down until you finished and never let go while trying to zoom in, zoom out, pan, accuratelly place, etc... You'll eventually get there and when you do, you'll find that, even with lots of experience, you'll be annoyed by that horrible tool, and you must use it so much, it will cause you stress in your muscles.

I hope I've helped!

TreblD · 15 Feb 2016, 11:53

Haha OK JQL, great reply. Many thanks. I was hoping for an easy solution but somehow suspected that there wasn't going to be one. On that note, I would like to cast my vote to revamp the move tool. The four-in-one thing is a nightmare. Its just way too frustrating to move things. Just a simple move tool please Mr Trimble.

Cheers

Mal

Dave R · 15 Feb 2016, 12:11

I must be doing it wrong because I've never found the move tool in LayOut to be a problem. Yes, you need to stay away from the Rotate handle if you don't want to rotate the entity. I think that just takes paying attention to what you are doing.

You can move the center grip to a different location on the entitiy and use it as a precision snapping point which makes it easy to do things like align geometry in SketchUp viewports.

The modifiers (Ctrl, Shift, Alt) do some interesting things with the Move tool. Ctrl invokes the copy function. Try resizing a SketchUp viewport while holding each of the others. Once you get the hang of it, you should never need to open and edit a SketchUp viewport in LayOut.

JQL · 17 Feb 2016, 10:00

There's almost* nothing you can't do with the move tool. In that aspect it's great.

It's just the most cumbersome tool to use I have ever worked with. In that aspect everything is wrong with the move tool.

What's wrong with the move tool is that it's actually the select tool!

So you're right, there's nothing wrong with the move tool, the problem is with select tool!

*almost refers to the fact that you can't infer your dongle for rotate.

utiler · 18 Feb 2016, 02:59

@jql said:

There's almost* nothing you can't do with the move tool. In that aspect it's great.

It's just the most cumbersome tool to use I have ever worked with. In that aspect everything is wrong with the move tool.

What's wrong with the move tool is that it's actually the select tool!

So you're right, there's nothing wrong with the move tool, the problem is with select tool!

*almost refers to the fact that you can't infer your dongle for rotate.

Exactly what JQL said and more.

LO's move tool needs to operate how SU's move too does; allow the user to simply snap to nodes without having to search around the selected zone and find a toggle to use as a snap.

Also, the rotate handle allows us to rotate an object but only very crudely. It needs to be able to provide the user an alignment to rotate from as well as user input via the VCB.

Or separate the move tool and create a rotate tool. Again, just like SU does.

JQL · 18 Feb 2016, 11:15

@utiler said:

Exactly what JQL said and more.

LO's move tool needs to operate how SU's move too does; allow the user to simply snap to nodes without having to search around the selected zone and find a toggle to use as a snap.

Also, the rotate handle allows us to rotate an object but only very crudely. It needs to be able to provide the user an alignment to rotate from as well as user input via the VCB.

Or separate the move tool and create a rotate tool. Again, just like SU does.

Exactly what utiler said and more.

I can't understand why LO isn't emulating the behaviour of EVERY sketchup tool!

The only people using LO are Sketchup users anyway, why not have the SU workflow seamless?

Richard · 19 Feb 2016, 00:30

@dave r said:

I must be doing it wrong because I've never found the move tool in LayOut to be a problem. Yes, you need to stay away from the Rotate handle if you don't want to rotate the entity. I think that just takes paying attention to what you are doing.

You can move the center grip to a different location on the entitiy and use it as a precision snapping point which makes it easy to do things like align geometry in SketchUp viewports.

The modifiers (Ctrl, Shift, Alt) do some interesting things with the Move tool. Ctrl invokes the copy function. Try resizing a SketchUp viewport while holding each of the others. Once you get the hang of it, you should never need to open and edit a SketchUp viewport in LayOut.

I'm actually with Dave on this one, I think the current functionality is brilliant. Select an object, move, scale, nudge, rotate all without the need to enable another tool! Scaling in layout in particular is AWESOME! The focus of the scale handles to the zoom or screen positioning is da bomb. In SU itself the scale tool has never worked as one would want, in fact it's the clunkiest tool at ones disposal.

Yes the lack of inferencing on rotate is an issue! But for all else I think if the functionality changes in future releases people will beg for it's return.

JQL · 19 Feb 2016, 10:23

We've had this discussion before Richard. From the literally hundreds of people I introduced to Sketchup, none found LO move tool intuitive.

How can you feel copying a text from Point A to Point B having to hold mouse button down, while panning and zooming with the mouse wheel, not forgeting to hold on CTRL at the right moment with the other hand, not forgetting to correctly place your dongle, zooming in as close as possible to stay clear of other objects, and of the scale tool, being carefull not to double click so you don't edit while also watch Layout drag around to generate the viewport be fun?

I simply cannot help thinking you guys are doing way too simple stuff and that is the only reason you've never experienced what I've experienced... It's not an impossible task, but it's a very hard one... I hate it! The move tool in LO is really the payment I get for having choosen Sketchup+Layout as my main architectural application...

The only thing saving me from madness is that I no longer have to see that crosshair floating around my black screen, hovering on vector hatches and 2d lines colored by layer... That is the only thing that makes the move tool seem rather nice!

ntxdave · 19 Feb 2016, 16:58

I have a slightly off topic question along this line.

I want to scale a viewport. Sometimes when I try to drag the corner I would like to be able to specify the scale size for both the horizontal and vertical scale. How do I do that? When I click in the corner, the VCB changes to Scale but as soon as I let go of the mouse button, it changes back to measurement.

Dave R · 19 Feb 2016, 20:01

@ntxdave said:

I have a slightly off topic question along this line.

I want to scale a viewport. Sometimes when I try to drag the corner I would like to be able to specify the scale size for both the horizontal and vertical scale. How do I do that? When I click in the corner, the VCB changes to Scale but as soon as I let go of the mouse button, it changes back to measurement.

Is it the scale of the viewport or the scale of the model in the viewport that you care about?

ntxdave · 19 Feb 2016, 20:21

@dave r said:

@ntxdave said:

I have a slightly off topic question along this line.

I want to scale a viewport. Sometimes when I try to drag the corner I would like to be able to specify the scale size for both the horizontal and vertical scale. How do I do that? When I click in the corner, the VCB changes to Scale but as soon as I let go of the mouse button, it changes back to measurement.

Is it the scale of the viewport or the scale of the model in the viewport that you care about?

It is the scale of the viewport.

Dave R · 19 Feb 2016, 20:25

Just let go of the mouse and type the scale factor. If you want the scale factor to be the same for both directions, just type the number such as .5 and hit Enter.

ntxdave · 19 Feb 2016, 20:29

@dave r said:

Just let go of the mouse and type the scale factor. If you want the scale factor to be the same for both directions, just type the number such as .5 and hit Enter.

That is what I tried but when I let go of the mouse button the VCB changed to Measurement instead of Scale. I will try again the next time I am in Layout.

Thanks for the reply......

Dave R · 19 Feb 2016, 20:31

When you type in the Scale factor it'll go back to showing the scale.

JQL · 19 Feb 2016, 21:06

If you want to scale an object in one of the directions only, you shouldn't pick the corner anyway. Either pick the sides, top or bottom.

ntxdave · 19 Feb 2016, 23:56

I just went and tried this again. I have two viewports of model on a page. One is a side view of a car wash layout and the other is a top view. I want to align the equipment in the 2 viewports. I just need to scale the side view a little and it will be fine. I click on one of the corners and drag and with enough patience I can get it aligned properly. What I have tried to do on several occasions is the click on one of the corners of the side view. The VCB shows me the scale factor for both horizontal and vertical scaling of the viewport. I would like to be able to type in the scale factor but as soon as I let go of the mouse the VCB goes back to Measurement and when I type in the scaling factor I get an error message that the measurement is invalid.

I was trying to type in something like 0.95,0.90 but get the error. I do not have screen capture software that would allow me to capture it and show you what is happening.

Dave R · 20 Feb 2016, 00:02

If the scenes for your top and elevation views are with the camera set to Parallel Projection, just set the scale for the viewports the same in the SketchUp inspector. Then you'll be able to align the views easily. There's no need to worry about the borders of the viewports.

Richard · 20 Feb 2016, 00:20

@jql said:

We've had this discussion before Richard. From the literally hundreds of people I introduced to Sketchup, none found LO move tool intuitive.

We certainly have and probably will again! Im not saying that the move tool couldn't function better, trying to marquee select a bunch of objects is a serious pain in the bum if you are trying to start on top of something! It just moves the background object GRRRRRRR!

Holding CTRL down whole time to copy, Grrrr!

Though the thing that shines for me, the scaling of objects, copy on scale or rotate, these are things are winners over SU's function. I've never worked out why SU allows you to copy with the move tool but not copy whilst rotating with the move tool!

And then there is the dongle thingy, I seriously love it!! Particularly whilst the zoom factor in Layout is so limited!

ntxdave · 20 Feb 2016, 01:40

Obviously have not been making myself clear.

In this example I have 2 scenes as mentioned before. I need to rescale the size of the viewport for the side view so that the content (the equipment) of the viewport aligns with the content of the top view viewport (as indicated by the purple arrows). I do it all the time by dragging the edges of the top viewport but sometimes Layout gets a little touchy. I would like to key in the scaling factors for the top viewport until I get the equipment to align. I am not trying to scale the content of the viewport.

Hope this makes it a little clearer of what I am trying to do and why I want to be able to key in the scaling values. As I said every time I have tried, as soon as I select an edge or corner and then let go of the mouse button, the VCB changes from the Scale to Measurement.