How many plugins is too many?
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I"ve been using sketchup regularly for over a year now but only recently discovered all the great plugins which make my work easier. i have been going overboard installing them so my question is how many is too many- ie, when it negatively affects the performance of the program?
cheers
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Well, theoretically there is no such thing as too many. The main problems that arise are that you get too many icons on your screen and that bugs people. Too many items in your right click menu, thats a problem. Too many items in your plugins menu, that can be annoying. Those are the main problems.
But the more plugins you have also might mean having some installed that are written poorly - meaning they might do "bad" things, like accidentally overwrite other plugins. And you will not notice that until you get a bad one installed along side of one it will mess up. those are generally few and far between, and most authors work together to fix the problems once they know about them.
Other than those main things, there is not necessarily a number you could assign as being "too many". Just however many you can stand to have loaded into your menus.
Chris
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@chris fullmer said:
Well, theoretically there is no such thing as too many. The main problems that arise are that you get too many icons on your screen and that bugs people. Too many items in your right click menu, thats a problem. Too many items in your plugins menu, that can be annoying. Those are the main problems.
But the more plugins you have also might mean having some installed that are written poorly - meaning they might do "bad" things, like accidentally overwrite other plugins. And you will not notice that until you get a bad one installed along side of one it will mess up. those are generally few and far between, and most authors work together to fix the problems once they know about them.
Other than those main things, there is not necessarily a number you could assign as being "too many". Just however many you can stand to have loaded into your menus.
Chris
oh, ok. so then they are not too heavy for the program then/ if i installed all the free rubies into my plugin folder - it should be ok- besides having an annoying long list and icons to choose from- which i can turn off anyway?
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I'd say I've got 50-150 (some files are libraries for the plugin), and other than the extra 2-3 seconds it takes SU to load, they all work fine.
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When you can't remember what they do, you have passed the limit!
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@chrisjk said:
When you can't remember what they do, you have passed the limit!
hahaha.. yes you right chrisjk
and as chris fullmer said, watch out for the crash between plugins, it would be
to check it one by one 
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I'd say, it would depend on you GPU, and CPU + RAM
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Interestingly, the more I use Sketchup the fewer plugins I use. For new users I suggest the following.
Start a text file in your Plugin folder, and every time you install a plugin record the following information
Name of plugin
Date of installation
List of file and folder names associated with the plugin
URL links to usage (YouTube, SketchUcation etc)The really useful plugins will become obvious, and those you hardly ever use can be tracked and moved to a 'just in case' folder, the 'just in case' being just in case you decide you need the plugin after all.
It is important to list of the files and folders so that you remove the plugin cleanly.
Regards,
Bob
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