Why does rotate work?

Snowfield

Hi,

I have an object that I need to rotate by 90 degrees. I watched the instructional video that shows how easy it is to do. But I could not get my object to rotate. I get the rotate symbol to locate on the right surface of the component. Then as I rotate the rotate symbol my object stays put. The only visual difference I noticed between what I am doing and what the instructional video shows, is that the selected object in the video is surrounded by a yellow box, whereas mine has a blue box. I thought that perhaps components can't be rotated so I exploded it and made it a group, but it still did not work. Any idea what I am doing wrong?

The instructional video refers to another video that contains info on arrays, but I dod not see any video with arrays in the title or description; which one is it?

Thanks for your help.

Krisidious

you need to click one more time... the first click is the axis of rotation. the second click is the rotation control point.

Dave R

Actually yellow was the default color for selections back in the day.

mitcorb

Hi.
The yellow highlight for the component is just the preferred color used by the operator in the video. Components can be rotated just as well as loose geometry. Do a Google search :"youtube sketchup array" or "youtube sketchup rotate" or "... copy" or just "youtube sketchup videos."

The only time a component cannot be rotated is if it has been locked, I believe.

EDIT: added missing quotes

mitcorb

Bam! "simultaneous" replies

Gaieus

Also (though this may be a dumb remark and sorry but I do not intend it as an offense), make sure you are actually using the Rotate tool and not the Protractor tool.

Box

Here's a rather rambling little vid showing how to rotate and array, mostly to point out the basics of the click and release aspect of SU tools.
[screenr:2xjk6v2z]Sx97[/screenr:2xjk6v2z]

Snowfield

Thanks,

I'm surprised by all this help. Thanks very much to all of you.

Gaieus, I suspect that making two different tools look alike was not a good UI decision. I hope they change the rotate tool to look more like the rotate icon.

Box, how did you make that video? I can see that it would be a good tool to show my future problems.

Box

I use http://www.screenr.com/ to make vids, but any screen grab tool will do.

Very easy if you have a youtube account, they can be embedded in posts.