Softened and Hidden Lines problem getting ridiculous
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Thanks TT.
I guess I thought an "observer" would snooze up in a tower and when a "mass un-soft" occurred he'd hear the commotion and ring a bell!
Peter
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The mount of times I reopen my project at the office, only to find someone has made changes to it and not noticed the soften bug... x_X
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Phew! Like Chris, I think I've probably avoided this one by developing fine de-selection and CTRL-S reflexes (years of practice having to use CorelDraw! he he)
Maybe a little off topic, but personally, I find SU's selecting habits rather bit-and-miss in general, in a way that would seem to encourage this kind of unwanted behaviour. Pretty much all drawing software that I've used defaults to leaving the most recently drawn item selected - i.e. using a tool that creates new geometry, by default, clears any selection made prior to using the tool. This often catches me out when I've just drawn some small detail, and then go to use a selection-dependent action or the entity info box, without noticing that unwanted items are still selected - but not the one that I just drew, and would expect to be selected.
I'm not trying to suggest that the problem discussed here isn't a bug - just that an overhaul of how SU handles selections is probably overdue anyway, lending the opportunity to get this issue addressed too. -
Thom, what about a set of tools that could overide some of the basic SU functions that are nown to cause the problem? we could rewrite save, and explode for example to always deselct everything before doing the operation.
I wonder if that would actually help solve the problem in most cases.
sel = Sketchup.active_model.selection
exploder = sel[0]
sel.clear
exploder.explode -
I've got the same topicstarter issue (relatively rare thanks god)
My partial workaround is to use 'hiddenlayer' ruby by Jim (so unwanted edges will be constantly hidden in all scenes). The trick is to set up the one constant layer name for hidden stuff (via your default starting template) -
@chris fullmer said:
sel = Sketchup.active_model.selection
exploder = sel[0]
sel.clear
exploder.explodeWhy explode stuff?
@chris fullmer said:
Thom, what about a set of tools that could overide some of the basic SU functions that are nown to cause the problem?
It can be any operation. Not any specific one. Just as long as the operation takes long enough for SketchUp to white-out. It can happen to plugins as well.
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I only used the explode example because that is just about the only time I ever see the bug is when I'm exploding mesh terrains. So it was the first that came to mind. So a new explode method, save method, rotate, move, all of which would get the user input, then deselect everything and commit the operation with nothing selected.
Just seemed like a potential help to alleviate some of the problems.
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Well, the problem seems to have fixed itself, at least for now. Had too much time invested in my latest project so I decided to see if I could finish it, and the line problem has only cropped up once (so far) and on a small, manageable scale.
Sort of like having a problem with your car so you take it to the mechanic and the problem disappears.
Still cringing every time I click the mouse button. -
We only really need one app, specifically an app to get the develpment team to listen to users and get to grips with the very basic problems in sketchup. Additional faces, issues with multiple plugins freezing the program, no functionaly reliable intersection tool etc et al.
Been at this point with other software and stopped using it, only at this point (not just me but many folk leaving) will the dev team actually listen. Most of the time the cries of users are drowned out by marketing types and beanie counters. Sad way to run a business.
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@mike amos said:
only at this point (not just me but many folk leaving) will the dev team actually listen.
But if the vast majority of the users use the free version, why would they really care about people leaving?
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@hellnbak said:
@mike amos said:
only at this point (not just me but many folk leaving) will the dev team actually listen.
But if the vast majority of the users use the free version, why would they really care about people leaving?
Excellent point, Steve. On the other hand, I know for a fact that the SketchUp development team are listening and do want to make improvements in the product. I believe they will do so but these things take resources. I would expect they would like to do more than they can in a given amount of time.
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It's worth noting that development hit a lull while they where under Google. Now, with Trimble owning SketchUp the game appear to change.
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Call me a skeptic, or more accurately a realist, but I honestly cannot see any possible reason for Trimble to want to improve SU. Even less so than when Google had it. At least they had a reason for wanting people to use the free version, to populate Google Earth with as many buildings as possible. Trimble doesn't even have that incentive.
Zero dollars coming in from all the thousands of people using their free program, and they are going to invest the many (expensive) man hours required to make the free program better? Why?I would honestly feel better about the whole situation if Trimble charged for the free program. That would give them some incentive, something that affects their bottom line. I know that idea won't be very popular, but when you think about it which would you rather have, a free program with many bugs and glitches, or a program that you had to pay a reasonable amount for and was aggressively maintained to make it work as well as possible?
Maybe I'm missing something here. I usually am. If so please enlighten me.
I'm not trying to be a trouble maker here. I really want it to be so, I just cannot see why it would be.
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@hellnbak said:
Call me a skeptic, or more accurately a realist, but I honestly cannot see any possible reason for Trimble to want to improve SU. Even less so than when Google had it. At least they had a reason for wanting people to use the free version, to populate Google Earth with as many buildings as possible. Trimble doesn't even have that incentive.
They made it free and integrated with Google Earth / Maps. But not a whole lost more got done in terms of major features. At least not compared to the timeline we're talking about. The SketchUp team has explained, and repeated this at Basecamp, that lots of Trimble divisions wants to integrate with SketchUp as a versatile modelling package. That means further developing the application and its capabilities - especially the API. Further more, at Basecamp they explicitly explained that the Trimble integrations will be in the forms of extensions (read plugins), so SketchUp will remain the same nature as it is now. It won't be hijacked. They even emphasized that anything that the Trimble divisions will use to communicate with SketchUp will be available to any other third party developer. There was also indications that there might be multiple pro versions and the difference between pro and free will increase.
@hellnbak said:
Zero dollars coming in from all the thousands of people using their free program, and they are going to invest the many (expensive) man hours required to make the free program better? Why?
Because of the reasons I mentioned above. There will be a greater difference between pro and free, which is where they'll get their income from. But they've also announced they will keep the free version - maintaining their motto "3d for everyone".
@hellnbak said:
I would honestly feel better about the whole situation if Trimble charged for the free program. That would give them some incentive, something that affects their bottom line. I know that idea won't be very popular, but when you think about it which would you rather have, a free program with many bugs and glitches, or a program that you had to pay a reasonable amount for and was aggressively maintained to make it work as well as possible?
By now I think I've addressed this already.@hellnbak said:
Maybe I'm missing something here. I usually am. If so please enlighten me.
I'm not trying to be a trouble maker here. I really want it to be so, I just cannot see why it would be.
We really haven't gotten the time to see Trimble SketchUp in action. A bit early to be pessimistic. If you look at the information that's come from the SketchUp team since Trimble bought them it's looking really good in terms of the future. Look at the Reddit sessions earlier this year. Look at the Basecamp notes that people've begun to post. (Basecamp section of the forum.) Also note that they've been posting several open job positions - they are staffing up.
Having been to Basecamp this year I'm very happy to have seen their enthusiasm for this Trimble change. Listen to what they've been telling us, and give them a chance to show there is good things to come. There's been big changes - even new offices. You don't see the result of the change over the day. I'd think the next release, which will be SketchUp 2013 (first of annual releases), will give the first indication of what's to come.
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Thanks for taking the time to explain things to me, thomthom. I'm a very simple person and often fail to understand or even see the subtle aspects of some things. Or even the obvious ones.
Having said that, from what you've said Trimble is on the road to concentrating on the Pro version (or versions), and in the end I see the free users getting left in the dust. Like you said, the difference between the pro and free versions will increase.
Trimble isn't anywhere near as big and powerful and obscenely wealthy as Google, and what was chump change to Google is much more important to the Trimble bottom line.
Of course they aren't going to do anything to alienate SU users at this point. They certainly don't want to piss off the Pro users and they are going to say whatever it takes to keep the free users on board, at least long enuf so that when SU free is so far removed from a much more improved and powerful Pro that a lot of the free users will fork over the bucks to step up.
I don't expect anybody to agree with me, but for these and other reasons I honestly don't see much of a future for the free version. I really don't.
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Why do you hate the free version? Think of it as a great way to get anyone into learning and using SU. Then once people realize they love and they need it to do a little more than the free version does, they can upgrade and pay the money.
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So Steve, which version do you use? Free or Pro?
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@chris fullmer said:
Why do you hate the free version? Think of it as a great way to get anyone into learning and using SU. Then once people realize they love and they need it to do a little more than the free version does, they can upgrade and pay the money.
Why would you think I hate the free version? I think it is great! There are so many talented modelers out there creating fantastic things everyday that would not have discovered their abilities if it were not for the free version of SU. Not many people, especially nowdays, can fork over the cost of a Pro version (which I think is overpriced).
Personally I don't think the vast majority even need the pro version. While I do have Pro, I only installed it to make sure the copy I bought on Ebay would work before I offered copies to others here on the forum (we won't go into the details of that fiasco). I have not once used any of the Pro features, and probably won't.
Seriously, what did I say that made you think I hated SU free?
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@dave r said:
So Steve, which version do you use? Free or Pro?
As I just said, I do have Pro, but if I had to go back to the free version it would not bother me one bit (other than the hassle of setting up everything again). While I'm sure it has some nice features that are useful for some people, I just don't need it.
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Your comments about wanting free to cost some money, for one. The other being it looked like you were hoping that trimble would leave it in the dust. I can read it differently and see that you weren't hoping they would, but were perhaps afraid that they would. That's it.
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