Assorting components "in model"

[plot-paris]

hello everybody,

I am currently working on a quite complicated model of a shopping centre. to keep the file small and the model simple I am trying to use as many components as possible (instead of groups). As a result the "in model" section of the components window looks like a battlefield - impossible to keep an overview of this huge amount of components.

so my question is: is it possible, to assort components in the "in model" section, in a subfolder structure for example? or is this something I should suggest to the programmers for SU 7?

[Gaieus]

Hi Plot Paris (and welcome to the forums)!

There is a possibility for this but (for some unknown reason) only for components loaded from outside. In the options dialogue of the component browser there is one that says "Expand" to show the nested components (although not in a "folder" view).

Now what you can do is to export your top level (parent) components (if you use nested components) and simply reload your existing ones with these (already) "external" components. This should allow you to "not expand" them thus tweaking your browser only showing the top level components.

This unreasonable behaviour of expanding multy level components has already been reported to developers by many.

[Jim]

I've seen components which have this property, but I have no idea how to create them.

[Gaieus]

Imported components can be expanded collapsed. Try to cretae a model with a bunch of components in it (don't make a final parent component for upon import it will turn into a component anyway). Save it, open a new SU model and import this saved model (as I said - as a component). Now it will come collapsed if the "Expand" option is unchecked but if you check it, it will expand (well, as it says) and the subcomponents become visible.

This should be the same with internal components (created on the fly in the model) but it's just not.

[plot-paris]

thanks a lot. I didnt know how to use the "Expand" command.
doesnt really help me though, because I am permanently changing the model, thus adding and deleting components every other minute.

but the expand-function is definitely something that needs to show up in SketchUp 7 for components created within the current file - preferably with a sort of tree structure, that enables you to easily retrace the parented component. of course thats something close to an outliner then. well, I hope they will think about that and surprise us with something increddibly useful...