[Plugin] SketchUcation Tools
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Hi all, just wondering if it's me or a quirk of the plugin tools (SketchUcation Plugin store) whereby I open the tool, search and auto install but get nothing until I close and restart sketchup in order to find/use the plugins I have either updated or downloaded.Also the check for updates tool (Fredo 6) doesn't seem to acknowledge the newly installed plugin versions. (Joint pp V3.0) and the Purge Obsolete files tool never shows any old files.
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When you install a Plugin it will usually load its code and set itself up correctly.
Especially if it's a newly installed tool.
However, in some circumstances - like with updated plugins - most menu items, toolbars etc will have been frozen when SketchUp started up earlier, and then a restart is needed to refresh those...
Restarting SketchUp is also recommended when updating, to ensure that everything is reset properly as SketchUp auto-loads things: some updates can load quite different code and this might conflict with what has already been loaded by a previous version - you cannot 'unload' ruby scripts... a restart is needed. -
I've noticed that with some plugins in the plugins store (loaded from within sketchup), when I click on 'more info' I get to a 'clean dedicated plugin explanation page'.
For example:
http://sketchucation.com/plugin/715-jointpushpullWhereas with other plugins I am pointed directly to the forum thread (like it always used to be).
I can understand the desire to keep things clean and simple, without confusing the average user with tedious forum threads... but right now there is a complete disconnect between this 'clean description page' and the forum where one could once ask questions and add his own two cents.
It's like you're defeating the whole basis on which all the development of these plugins started on - communication and sharing.There should be a link to the forum. Maybe an added 'see in forum' tab, along with the 'overview, quickstart, documentation, release notes' tabs...
This, along with the "premium members forum" are both eroding the basis on which the Sketchucation community stands on - "free and open knowledge".
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@halroach said:
There should be a link to the forum.
It's called Feedback.
@halroach said:
This, along with the "premium members forum" are both eroding the basis on which the Sketchucation community stands on - "free and open knowledge".
Did you ever asked a question and didn't get an answer because of the premium membership?
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@cotty said:
@halroach said:
There should be a link to the forum.
It's called Feedback.
You're right! simply speaking there should be a feedback button (or a link to the forum)
@halroach said:
This, along with the "premium members forum" are both eroding the basis on which the Sketchucation community stands on - "free and open knowledge".
Did you ever asked a question and didn't get an answer because of the premium membership?
I am glad to say I have always gotten an answer, and that the members of sketchucation are a wonderful group of people to correspond with.
But, there may be some interesting threads going on up there in the towers of "premium membership" that may be losing the feedback of the general public. I don't wish to sound too harsh - I am sure there are good reasons for a closed membership forum, but it comes at the price of losing a percentage of collaboration.
(Taken to the extremes are the Vray forums of chaos group which are very dry because of "complete closed forum policy").
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You could fire a shotgun in that private tower and not hit a thing. It's not some club where all the cool guys hang out.
A premium membership is really just formalised forum sponsorship. It means you are happy to help the forum survive financially and as such the forum gives you back some freebies and discounts on stuff. There is access to private consulting rooms, which is just what they sound like, a place where you can talk and share with specific people because you are limited by non disclosure or other professional restrictions.
Premium membership isn't about taking stuff way from people, it's about adding value on top. There are many benefits to being a premium member, but nobody is missing out on any sort of discussion that would benefit from the addition of the general public. Threads in the premium forum are usually along the lines of, how do I renew my membership or some such.
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@halroach said:
You're right! simply speaking there should be a feedback button (or a link to the forum)
There is a button called Feedback which leads you to the forum
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SCF is free to use, but does cost money to keep it running.
This is primarily got from the payments from advertisers and premium memberships.
And for this modest consideration both get something in return - the former get their products brought to the attention of relevant SketchUp users, the later get free or discounted SCF Shop items and additional forums where they can receive more involved advice - but frankly, the advice that is always given freely on the open forums is, more often than not, adequate to all members' needs...
Premium Members effectively choose to 'sponsor' SCF with a few dollars a month, and for that they know that they help SCF to survive.
There are some 'fringe-benefits' of having a Premium membership, but it is NOT some 'exclusive dining-club' where the members 'feast', whilst the rest of you 'plebs' get the table-scraps in the gutter ! The principal benefit is that by becoming a Premium Member your help SCF to thrive...
When have you ever felt unfairly disadvantaged as a non-premium member ?
I would bet that no one has ever said to you, "Sorry, we can't answer that question unless you are a premium member..." !The 'More Info'/'Feedback' changeover has only just started in the last week or two to redirect the 'More Info' button link on the PluginStore page entry or equivalent dialog listing, to a page that is specific to each Plugin - this has consistently presented information etc to help memebers understand the capabilities and use of each Plugin; in turn, this page has a button called 'Feedback' that links to the forum-post that relates to that Plugin: this is where you can comment, read others advice etc. New or updated Plugins will automatically have this new dedicated page created: however there are many hundreds of Plugins, and therefore there are some older ones that are currently 'unconverted' and are without a dedicated page of their own, and these will therefore still link their 'More Info' button directly to their principal forum-thread [usually the first post]. Over time this should change and all Plugins ought to end up with their own dedicated page, and the 'Feedback' button will then apply to all for accessing the Plugins thread. There has been some internal-SCF debate about what the 'Feedback' button should say, so we welcome your feedback [
] - it can't logically say 'More Info' because it was by clicking on a link using that name that brought the user to this page in the first place: but instead of 'Feedback' it could say 'Posts', 'Thread', 'Main-Thread' 'Forum-Page', 'SCF-Thread', 'SCF-Posts' etc - would anyone else like to chip in on this with comments ?All of the pages etc discussed above are free to you, as a valued member of SCF [irrespective of you membership-type], the 'private consultation' pages in the Premium section are just that, the other pages contain general housekeeping questions and responses, the only thing you missed out on recently, by deciding not to have Premium Memebership, was the beta-testing of the new PluginStore software, which Premium Members helped with [thank-you!] - but if you think about that, they actually paid money and then they did additional work to help make SCF better, with no reward other than knowing that SCF was helped... but I can assure you that there will be nothing there that disadvantages the 'hoi poloi'... so please have a little, understanding, humanity and just be thankful...
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@cotty said:
@halroach said:
You're right! simply speaking there should be a feedback button (or a link to the forum)
There is a button called Feedback which leads you to the forum
Oh!
There is a feedback button! It took me a while to find it...
I think it needs to be placed somewhere else more visible, or renamed as Tig suggests: I'm all for any of these:
'Thread', 'Main-Thread' 'Forum-Page', 'SCF-Thread', 'SCF-Posts', 'Forum-Thread'. -
@box said:
You could fire a shotgun in that private tower and not hit a thing. It's not some club where all the cool guys hang out.
A premium membership is really just formalised forum sponsorship. It means you are happy to help the forum survive financially and as such the forum gives you back some freebies and discounts on stuff. There is access to private consulting rooms, which is just what they sound like, a place where you can talk and share with specific people because you are limited by non disclosure or other professional restrictions.
Premium membership isn't about taking stuff way from people, it's about adding value on top. There are many benefits to being a premium member, but nobody is missing out on any sort of discussion that would benefit from the addition of the general public. Threads in the premium forum are usually along the lines of, how do I renew my membership or some such.
@tig said:
SCF is free to use, but does cost money to keep it running.
This is primarily got from the paymments from advertisers and premium memberships.
And for this modest consideration both get something in return - the former get their products brought to the attention of relevant SketchUp users, the later get free or discounted SCF Shop items and additional forums where they can receive more involved advice - but frankly, the advice that is always given freely on the open forums is, more often than not, adequate to all members' needs...
Premium Members effectively choose to 'sponsor' SCF with a few dollars a m
@box said:specific people because you are limited by non disclosure or other professional restrictions.
Premium membership isn't about taking stuff way from people, it's about adding value on top. There are many benefits to being a premium member, but nobody is missing out on any sort of discussion that would benefit from the addition of the general public. Threads in the premium forum are usually along the lines of, how do I renew my membership or some such.
onth, and for that they know that they help SCF to survive.
There are some 'fringe-benefits' of having a Premium membership, but it is NOT some 'exclusive dining-club' where the members 'feast', whilst the rest of you 'plebs' get the table-scraps in the gutter ! The principal benefit is that by becoming a Premium Member your help SCF to thrive...
When have you ever felt unfairly disadvantaged as a non-premium member ?
I would bet that no one has ever said to you, "Sorry, we can't answer that question unless you are a premium member..." !The 'More Info'/'Feedback' changeover has only just started in the last week or two to redirect the 'More Info' button link on the PluginStore page entry or equivalent dialog listing, to a page that is specific to each Plugin - this has consistently presented information etc to help memebers understand the capabilities and use of each Plugin; in turn, this page has a button called 'Feedback' that links to the forum-post that relates to that Plugin: this is where you can comment, read others advice etc. New or updated Plugins will automatically have this new dedicated page created: however there are many hundreds of Plugins, and therefore there are some older ones that are currently 'unconverted' and are without a dedicated page of their own, and these will therefore still link their 'More Info' button directly to their principal forum-thread [usually the first post]. Over time this should change and all Plugins ought to end up with their own dedicated page, and the 'Feedback' button will then apply to all for accessing the Plugins thread. There has been some internal-SCF debate about what the 'Feedback' button should say, so we welcome your feedback [
] - it can't logically say 'More Info' because it was by clicking on a link using that name that brought the user to this page in the first place: but instead of 'Feedback' it could say 'Posts', 'Thread', 'Main-Thread' 'Forum-Page', 'SCF-Thread', 'SCF-Posts' etc - would anyone else like to chip in on this with comments ?All of the pages etc discussed above are free to you, as a valued member of SCF [irrespective of you membership-type], the 'private consultation' pages in the Premium section are just that, the other pages contain general housekeeping questions and responses, the only thing you missed out on recently, by deciding not to have Premium Memebership, was the beta-testing of the new PluginStore software, which Premium Members helped with [thank-you!] - but if you think about that, they actually paid money and then they did additional work to help make SCF better, with no reward other than knowing that SCF was helped... but I can assure you that there will be nothing there that disadvantages the 'hoi poloi'... so please have a little, understanding, humanity and just be thankful...
Hi Box, Tig,
Please understand that I did not mean to be harsh or offensive, and I have no criticism on your ways. I am very thankful for these forums and for the hard working people behind them.
I guess the plugin store did come up as a surprise to me. But I can completely understand why you would want to develop such a plugin in a closed forum - keeps things more tidy and under control.
I think it is up to each individual do decide how he contributes. I contribute with my experience, knowledge and time, suggesting ideas and giving solutions. And time = money. Maybe not the kind that will keep your forum up and running, but that's what forums are all about.
Your explanations for why and what the premium membership is all about, are very good and convincing. I am very glad to hear that it is all about "adding value on top".So please, no hard feelings.
Keep up the good work! and Cheers to you all! -
@unknownuser said:
This, along with the "premium members forum" are both eroding the basis on which the Sketchucation community stands on - "free and open knowledge".
I really don't know what to say about that comment...
But I feel extremely disappointed that you arrived at such a conclusion.
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@rich o brien said:
@unknownuser said:
This, along with the "premium members forum" are both eroding the basis on which the Sketchucation community stands on - "free and open knowledge".
I really don't know what to say about that comment...
But I feel extremely disappointed that you arrived at such a conclusion.
Seriously, I take it back.
You're right!
Please accept my apologies. -
@tig said:
'Feedback' it could say 'Posts', 'Thread', 'Main-Thread' 'Forum-Page', 'SCF-Thread', 'SCF-Posts' etc - would anyone else like to chip in on this with comments ?
My suggestion:
"Get Sketchucated!"
Now, for more prosaic talk...
There are a lot of issues with Plugin Store not installing plugins on the computers of many of the people I tutor. It's mostly on Sketchup 8 but sometimes on Sketchup 2013 too.
I tried installing Sketchup 8 in my own computer, (where everything works on sketchup 2013), and some plugins didn't install while others were being correctly installed. I checked about permissions on folders and everything was right in some of the computers envolved.
What was happening was that Plugin Store was not downloading the plugin files or was not copying the files to the plugin folders on those computers.
The most important thing I also noticed was that in some of the computers, (probably all, I didn't test...) I couldn't install .rbz files from Window\Preferences.
When installing plugins the old fashioned way everything worked OK. So I installed the plugins manually, downloading them, and copying to folders.
I hope you can track something from this and if you need some more info or for me to try something either in my own computer or in those other computers (harder) I'll do it.
Thanks again for all your efforts on this excellent forum and plugin store.
Best regards,
JQL
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@unknownuser said:
some plugins didn't install while others were being correctly installed. I checked about permissions on folders and everything was right in some of the computers envolved.
Examples of failing plugins? names?
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on the v8 not installing rbz files is that because they have the first release of SU8 which didn't support rbz installs?
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If an installed version of SketchUp doesn't support 'rbz-auto-install' [<=v8M2] there will not be an 'Install...' button in Preferences > Extensions...
AND the SketchUcation Plugin Store dialog OUGHT to popup an error message and abort IF you try to click the AutoInstall button - [other unrelated tools/operations could still work?].
Can you please confirm what happens when clicking on the dialog's AutoInstall button IF the version is not a suitable v8/2013 installation...
Ruby Console errors appreciated if no separate error dialogs.
Also the SketchUcation Archive Installer [in the submenu] for RBZ/ZIP, should present similar error messages where appropriate ?? -
Hi Rich and TIG,
Plugins were Sketchucation Plugin Store, Joint Push Pull (new version), Section Cut Face and a manual install of SU2Kerkythea. On my own computer (Windows) there is also an install of Thea plugin but not on other people's computers.
- Plugin Store was correctly installed (using window/preferences/extensions) and at first look seems to be working correctly;
- JPP was correctly installed from Plugin Store;
- Section cut face failed to install from Plugin Store. I didn't install it manually on purpose but I did it on other people's computers and it worked well.
Tried at my own office right now and it happens just the same thing as when I was in tutoring context.
My version of SU8 is latest as well as on other people computers.Only Section Cut Face doesn't work. But I tried very few plugins (simply for example of regular sketchup workflow VS plugin accelerated workflow) so there could be other plugins that I would not be able to install. Restarted Sketchup and SectionCutFace still didn't work (cilinder image).
Nothing strange happens on ruby console when clcking autoinstall. Normal messages appear when auto installing. No error messages.
Archive installer also does not work or display any messages.I have no problems on SU 2013, but some people were having them.
Checked for folder permissions and I believe everything is right. There is only one file on virtual store that is for KT, as you see on image.
If you want to make the process more direct we could arrange a time when I could be online so I could test imediately.
I hope this helps, and if you need anything more, feel free to ask.
Thanks and best regards,
JQL
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It is strange that you get no errors as an incompatible version should do something...
Also the inability to download and/or install should throw some kind of error messages, whether it's by virtue of an incompatible earlier version of SketchUp that doesn't support RBZ installs, or folder permissions being limited, or connection issues.When you say SectionCutFace 'doesn't work'...
Does it install at all in v8 - i.e. is its file/subfolder in the Plugins folder
Does it appear in the Plugins Manager list at all ?
Does it appear in the right-click context-menu when you have just one section-plane selected ?
It does NOT appear in any other menus.
From your screen-shot it's not clear... is the section-pane the only thing that is selected?
Is the SectionCutFace .rb ever in Plugins at all, and listed in the Plugins Manager ?
Please remember that not all plugins will get entries in the Plugins menu - read their individual instructions - some are context-menu only, or are in menus like Tools or Draw...Of course a plugin might occasionally fail to download properly before it is then installed, e.g. if there were a network or ISP connection glitch, but then you should get error messages ??
Can its file/subfolder be 'manually' added to the Plugins folder successfully ?
You do have a 'Compatibility Files...' [but in Portuguese!] link/button in the upper-bars of the Windows Explorer window for the Plugins folder - this shows that permissions are [or have been] limited and not FULL, and thereby some errors might be occurring - but there should be error messages... There should never be any files in your VirtualStore, if the Plugins folder's permissions are set properly for every user/group listed =='FULL'...
Can you post lists of the contents of the SketchUcation subfolder and all of its nested subfolders...
This is weird
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The Portuguese might be a clue, is it possible the ones that aren't working correctly have some sort of accent in their user name.
Or possibly something in the regional format, I had a case with an access database where the date divider was causing some computers in our Oslo office to misbehave. It was simply that the other users were more international thinking and had adjusted that one thing.
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@box said:
The Portuguese might be a clue, is it possible the ones that aren't working correctly have some sort of accent in their user name.
Or possibly something in the regional format, I had a case with an access database where the date divider was causing some computers in our Oslo office to misbehave. It was simply that the other users were more international thinking and had adjusted that one thing.
@Box
An excellent point !
Users with 'accents' in their user-names or paths will have difficulties because their temp folders etc will be thought not to exist by SketchUp's current Ruby setup [a known issue on PCs up to and including v2013 at least] - so there will usually be failures when trying to make some files needed to store/manipulate data - like the log-in cookie.dat file and sets files, and the temporary downloaded files that are needed to do the RBZ auto-install from the user's temp/appdata path..
So current non-ASCII characters cannot be included in Users' names if SketchUp's Ruby is to use those paths.
BUT this is weird if SOME plugins do install and some do not
I'd expect some users to have problems [accented] and some to not [no accents], but not with it varying across individual plugins and SketchUp bersions too...
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