SketchUp 2013 Gripes & Bitchin' ONLY ;)
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I've already said a lot of what I wanted to say elsewhere, and in the absence of new material to rage against from Trimble, I will wrap this up with 2 posts. The first post will attempt to solidify what I think went so wrong with SketchUp 9 (I'm not calling it 2013 anymore). The second post will try to address steps the users could possibly take to do something to make sure this never happens again.
First off, lets establish the fact that $95 is not much money for an upgrade... given that fact, the expectations are extremely low as to what the dev team has to accomplish to earn such a small sum of money. The reality is that they failed to even do the minimal amount needed to earn such a paltry upgrade fee.
I would be willing to pay three times that amount for a true upgrade – changes that made SketchUp relevant and competitive again. So hopefully we have established the issue here is not price per se, but rather value... the price can be whatever they would like to charge, but the value of the software must be equal to the price or there is no fair deal.
Secondly, the changes to the licensing are a slap in the face of professional users at every level.
For the users who were previously using the free version for commercial work, the idea that they must now pay $590 for essentially the same piece of software is ludicrous. The reason many of them never purchased Pro in the first place is Layout and the other Pro-only features were not compelling to them – adding nothing of substance to SketchUp proper make the fee to upgrade to Pro unappealing to say the least. Where is the incentive for these users to part with $590?
For users who were already users of SketchUp Pro, Trimble has made the mistake of trying to bully an already paying user base into paying even more for lackluster upgrades. First, the price for an upgrade has been $95 every 2 years – now they want to charge $190 every 2 years ($95 per year) for what amounts to hardly any value added. Secondly, if the (already paying mind you) users refuse to pay the $95 per year by skipping, they are penalize through no fault of their own – this amounts to the user being forced to pay a penalty fee for the SketchUp teams poor performance... which is in no way the fault of the user. This financial burden of failure to compete is the sole responsibility of Trimble and should never be placed on the users.
Finally, and most disturbingly, they may not even be done fleecing the loyal users – as it appears there is some possibility that Trimble made SketchUp “bolt-ons” may be released through the warehouse at even more additional cost.
Shame on you Trimble, where are your ethics? Where is your pride in your craftsmanship as software developers? Where is your competitive spirit as developers of software?
Best,
Jason. -
The major issue for me is the missed oppertunity to gain a little trust. There have been issues not adressed for a while now and whichprevent the program being as good as it could be, as mentioned the biggest is a reliance on third parties to bring functioality and while it has the bonus of being cheap also brings problems of conflicting code. If trimble had released this upgrade as free of charge and pointed out the policy of commercial work being banned with the free version as of the next major upgrade they would have gone a long way towards this. The confusion on the upgrade price when a user skips an upgrade/version would have had time to be resolved by then too. Seems like a one legged horse just shot itself in the foot to me.
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@mike amos said:
If trimble had released this upgrade as free of charge and pointed out the policy of commercial work being banned with the free version as of the next major upgrade they would have gone a long way towards this.
while i agree that would be nice, it's something i truly wouldn't expect when considering trimble is a corporation that just spent a boatload of dough on the application.. they definitely are expecting a return on their investment.
wether or not they put out a proper version to entice the consumer is obviously arguable.. i mean, even i, a die hard SU user, will be sticking with v8.. i've spent hours upon hours (upon hours!) discussing/arguing/etc (including hundreds of example files/videos/long winded posts, some of which were directly with members of the SU dev team themselves) --- and.. nothing!.. nothing
it sucks that it's come down to this but i have absolutely zero voice in the direction of the application that i've relied on and trusted in all these years.. instead, i'm left with one single voice and that is via my bank account. i hate that i have to play that card but i feel as if i've been pushed into a corner with no other choice.
(well, no other choice with this application in particular) -
Alright, so hopefully I clearly established why I think this “upgrade” fails... Lets look at what you can do about it.
First off, don't “upgrade” – if you are free version user don't pay the $590... and if you are an existing Pro user don't pay the $95.
This next bit is going to anger a lot of people and I can't help that – furthermore, it's not really their fault and they will be penalized for that, but there is a real need to motivate this particular group to speak out.
What I am talking about is 3rd party developers – the user should not purchase any plugin that is made for 2013, nor should they purchase any plugin that they believe fills a need that SketchUp should fill in-house (as part of SketchUp proper). The reality is that the 3rd party developers have the largest voice in Trimbles ear here. By the user base withholding funds they (3rd party developers) will become much more motivated to speak out and apply real pressure to make Trimble change course. Conversely, if the users keep the stream of revenue coming, they have very little motivation to rock the boat.
Obviously, that creates some additional hardships for the user – but remember the real responsible party for any hardships you endure are Trimble and the SketchUp team. Free plugins are obviously exempt from this... and I do encourage you to donate if you can.
Furthermore, I think it imperative that users take on an additional software package (if they have not already done so) – by supporting a competitor of SketchUp you are applying additional market pressure to Trimble... which in turn should result in better future SketchUp updates for everybody. There are many fine packages out there to choose from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. A few I think are particularly worthwhile looking into are listed with links below:
bozai3d or form.z
Rhino3D
MoI3D
BlenderIf you cannot afford to financially support a commercial SketchUp competitor, then support the Open Source movement by using Blender. Supporting Open Source software applies pressure to the entire industry to step-up their game and can only improve the competitive situation.
Do these things and you will be applying pressure in ways that Trimble cannot ignore.
Adding a response to this thread also applies pressure, and I encourage everybody who is dissatisfied with the status quo to post, even if it is only to say "I agree". The mortal enemy of change is apathy... conversely you can change things by simply banding together and speaking out (with keyboard and wallet). They do read this stuff -- it's a fact.
Best,
Jason. -
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Excellent addition! I see some features there which many SketchUp users would be very happy to have access to.
Best,
Jason. -
@jason_maranto said:
... I think it imperative that users take on an additional software package (if they have not already done so) – by supporting a competitor of SketchUp you are applying additional market pressure to Trimble...
Hi jason_maranto ,
I think that what it is , truly imperative now , is a much better conexion in between
Trimble _ SketchUcation
or
SketchUcation _ TrimbleFirst things _ First
I think their relationship could ? (certainly should) improve
I do not know the facts but in this Upgrade it has been clearly shown that they have been working towards the same direction but in complete isolation each one ( I am talking about the management of plugins ) -
There were even more parties working towards similar goals -- what you should notice from that is alot of wasted double effort on the part of the community due to the SketchUp teams absurd secrecy policies.
Why do I call the policies absurd? Because there is (and has been) absolutely nothing worth keeping a secret about SketchUp development for quite some time. They are so far behind the times that their development cycle is like reading a history book of how software was made 5 years ago...
Anybody who wanted to steal any worthwhile ideas from SketchUp only needs a copy of SketchUp 6... and even that might be dubious.
I have always been sincere in saying that without this community SketchUp would be a joke -- and despite the best efforts of this community, they seem intent on remaining a joke.
Best,
Jason. -
I'll slide my quiet gripe in, the start up welcome nag screen is an unfunny joke.
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@jason_maranto said:
They are so far behind the times that their development cycle is like reading a history book of how software was made 5 years ago...
The AutoCAD 12 interface was more advanced & better than the current SU2013 interface. That was about 20 years ago (pre Win95 as I was running it on Win 3.11 for Workgroups.)
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No changes (fixes?) to the Ruby API? Ok, after years of hunger we have learned to live from
nil. But if nothing has been touched then I'd expect at least no regressions.
Now if we compare: the same SketchUp with the same SketchUp, we would not prefer the one with more bugs. -
@dan rathbun said:
The AutoCAD 12 interface was more advanced & better than the current SU2013 interface. That was about 20 years ago (pre Win95 as I was running it on Win 3.11 for Workgroups.)
No doubt. SketchUp has never exactly been a sterling example of UI design -- which largely contributes to its perception as a toy. I have often wondered why Layout has had a better UI than Sketchup for 6 years... Of course neither is anything close to the best UI I have seen, but Layout is far superior.
What I meant though is that the actual functionality of most of the software has not altered since version 6 -- all that has happened is slight refinement. So using Sketchup is like climbing into a time machine and going back 5-6 years ago.
Best,
Jason. -
@jason_maranto said:
What I meant though is that the actual functionality of most of the software has not altered since version 6 -- all that has happened is slight refinement. So using Sketchup is like climbing into a time machine and going back 5-6 years ago.
Which incidentally match the point of time where Google bought SketchUp...
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@thomthom said:
Which incidentally match the point of time where Google bought SketchUp...
I see no gripe here!!! -- don't make me beat you with your own mod wand
Let me show you how it's done: SketchUp = teh Suck!
Best,
Jason. -
I think this comment of mine do not belong to this thread , but ....
hope you don´t mind
I am guessing that what it really need to be as much better as it could ,
(to raise**SketchUp** further) , would be the power of Ruby .
If it is so , and we are in the hands of people who do not care about it , what future can we expect ?Up to what extent working with Ruby as what it is now , 2.013 update included , things could improve ?
What things could not ever be done ?
thanks
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@juanv.soler said:
Up to what extent working with Ruby as what it is now , 2.013 update included , things could improve ?
What things could not ever be done ?
I'm certainly not the best expert on this topic and people like Dan and ThomThom would be far more qualified than I to suggest improvements.
But here's what I think.
The single most important thing would be to open the native tools/windows/dialogs/etc. to 3rd party developers. By this I mean if somebody wanted to add a function to the Entity Info dialog, or place a tool tutorial directly into the Instructor window, or add functionality to the Push/Pull tool they could.
Obviously that would have to come with some oversight and tighter regulation -- but SketchUp/3rd party collaboration will never truly be integrated until this happens... and without that, user adoption will always be less than optimal.
Now that said, I do not expect this to ever happen... "darling" is far too in love with, and protective of, his ideals of simplicity to ever allow infidels to touch his precious.
Best,
Jason. -
I understand
Thanks Jasonbest
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I have a couple of ideas to what can be improved in the API. I've collected them in this Google Docs document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hwEivitbEwU-Lbnkia9K0HOEKlXkYrV3uVPcqeZZofw/edit?usp=sharing
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@unknownuser said:
i'm left with one single voice and that is via my bank account. i hate that i have to play that card but i feel as if i've been pushed into a corner with no other choice.
(well, no other choice with this application in particular)Unfortunately, maybe because I've always trusted my relations with SketchUp, I downloaded and paid for the upgrade before I saw what it was. I draw for a living and $95 doesn't make or break my day but I do think the symbolic aspect of this is important. I might not have upgraded had I understood the whole picture.
Some of the fanboys on the other thread who think anyone who complains is a whining toddler seem not to understand that, as a professional, you have an obligation to voice complaints if you think your business relations have taken a turn against your interests. No improvements in annotations, zooming to details, curves, or anything else I can think of as basic to one's use of SketchUp would seem to justify questioning the legitimacy of calling this an 'upgrade'.
The significant improvements that one expects in an upgrade that fundamentally alter your workflow for the better are not apparent here and I worry that it takes the pressure off other developers to attempt to hit it out of the park with future releases. SketchUp isn't a toy, it's not a private party for the fanboys - it's the program of choice for thousands of individuals and companies around the world. If an upgrade with literally no improvement to workflow is acceptable here it will likely be the standard bearer for other software companies going forward.
The justifications for this are not convincing. Most of them have to do with issues of speed and stability. But when a company buys an asset they are also buying, and responsible for, it's liabilities. The obligation to make the program as crash proof as possible was transferred from Google to Trimble when Trimble purchased SketchUp. To charge for reducing the likelihood of crashes is like a roofer charging you to fix leaks after he's charged you for the cost of a new roof.
Fortunately, there are options now that we didn't have in the past. The SketchUp influence has become widespread over the last few years. The ease of modeling in Rhino V5 would be a good example. The monopoly that AutoCAD LT has in the 2D market is no longer matched by the monopoly in 3D speed modeling that SketchUp once held. I actually hope some of these other companies pick up a few more subscribers because of this fiasco. Competition is good.
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@thomthom said:
I have a couple of ideas to what can be improved in the API. I've collected them in this Google Docs document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hwEivitbEwU-Lbnkia9K0HOEKlXkYrV3uVPcqeZZofw/edit?usp=sharing
I have read it , not to say that I have understood the language of programing .
But it seems to me that there are quite a lot of features that Masters of Ruby , could improve if the Ruby application programming interface (API), was updated .
So to make it clear to me , we do not have those possibilities because the software development team , Trimble , do not want us to have it , for whatever reasons .Thanks for telling thomthom
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