Layout 14 leader text
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Am I really the only one experiencing this? I find that hard to believe.
Come on Su Team; you guys have some cleaning up to do with this mess of a version 14 release. I have never seen an update go backwards in so many places.
Still can't move dimensions to one end of the line without 5 clicks, instead of one right click in SU
Can't open multiple files in Mac anymore
this leader text issue
I see no appreciable speed up in Layout vectors, either.
But the warehouse is awesome?! and now I can make arcs in a couple of different ways? You kidding me? Poor showing boys, I just have to say it out loud. FIX WHAT YOU BROKE!
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Chuck, I've been using SketchUp and LayOut on both my Mac and PC and haven't had any troubles. I can't agree with your assertion that they've gone backwards at all.
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I'm not seeing this on Win8?
The fill remains. I didn't go changing font type/size just the fill.
It samples and paints as expected.
Can you screengrab your workflow?
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1: choose leader text tool
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If you choose to fill at this point, it is filling the leader arrow not the text, which is confusing, I think
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Click once to start, drag out and click again to set arrow and ready to type text
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Choose fill color
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Type text and hit escape. Text displays with fill, as expected. (though it is a little confusing that there are two fill settings for the tool and that you have to choose the text fill after you locate the leader arrow)
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Choose leader tool again and it will not retain the text fill attribute. I can find no way to get the tool to remember the text fill. I have to eyedropper from the right one to the non-filled one. And, if I eyedropper, the tool will not pick that attribute up for the next time.
Can anyone confirm this? mac and/or windows?
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Confirmed....
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Thanks Rich; thought I was going crazy there for a minute.
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Hi Chuck-
The Label tool is a bit of a strange beast because it inherits behavior from both the Line tool and the Text Box tool. There are certain aspects of the behavior that we've never quite been satisfied with.
I can reproduce this behavior in 2014 and in 2013 as well. Are you seeing this as a behavior change since a previous version? Or is this a new workflow for you that's not working as you expect?
thanks,
Marc -
Hi Marc,
Can I take a sec and mention how awesome it is that guys like you and Andrew, and Chris, and Thomas are so active on these forums? That people like me, who use your software every day to make a living, have an avenue to communicate with the developers is really wonderful.
As for the leader text, I feel like the functionality in 13 was different, but maybe not? I know that it wasn't until I started using 14 that I noticed that I couldn't do something with the leader text that I really wish I could.
Overall, I think the core functionality of Layout is very good. The linking to SU works great and the documents come out looking fantastic. I ma one of the ones who has been very very pleased to see that LO has been continually updated and improved. It is far superior to the original. The only core functionality that I understand is less than perfect is the dxf export function, but luckily I don't need that. But all in all, I enjoy my time spent in the LO workspace. That being said, some workflow tweaks would really really improve my experience, primarily by reducing the number of mouse clicks it takes to create a complex document.
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If you are editing text, or a line segment, or whatever, and you flip to another software (SU to take an area measurement, for example), and then you come back to LO, the edit are no longer active. So, then you have to place the cursor back on the entity, double-click the entity, click to place the curser, and then you can start editing. If you are changing something in a group, then the number of clicks can get to 6 or more, in an addition to moving the curser around). Go through that process a couple hundred times a day and you start to notice it being annoying. Seems like every other software out there maintains curser location and edit state, so why can't LO?
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Custom placing of dimensions is cumbersome and takes endless mouse clicking. To have to double-click a dimension, then a well timed single-click on the dimension text, and then drag it to one or the other ends of the dimension line every time I need to adjust spacing, etc is a big time suck. Especially small dimensions because then I have to zoom in because often times the text box won't become active unless you get close. I probably customize 60% of the dimensions I place, and I miss SU's ability to right click and choose start, middle, end. Or, even better, a keyboard shortcut to move the text around would be awesome.
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Can't set a keyboard shortcut for placing the dimension text inside, middle, or outside of the line. So, every time you want to change, it is a coin toss whether it is quicker to just edit it and manually place it, or is it quicker to move my cursor across the screen to click a button and then bring it back again?
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Add a radio button for setting the active layer instead of making the active layer the one you happen to have highlighted. I have meticulous and well-practiced layer control in all of my softwares, but, in LO, I just never seem to have the item on the layer that I wanted it on. I know why, but it doesn't change the fact that the present condition makes it too easy to get it wrong. And getting everything back on the right layers can be very time consuming. The way SU does it, with the layer 0 and a hard set button would work great. (don't get me started on SU's other layer issues, haha)
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I like that the esc key closes down an edit, that works very well for me. I actually wish the text in SU worked the same way as I am always hitting esc and losing my text in SU, but that's not that big of a deal. I like how it works in LO. What I don't like is that if you edit text with the font window, when you hit esc it makes the font window disappear and the text remains editable and you have to hit esc again to close it and then the keyboard shortcut to get the font window back. I get to play that game tens of times a day.
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I wish I could right-click to lock an entity, just like in SU. I know you can lock layers, but that is not precise enough for what I do without a serious number of layers, and even then I would invariably have everything on the wrong one anyway... It would be very handing to right-click lock things, or groups of selected things
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I wish you could dimension in perspective, like you can in SU. Really, SU's dimensioning with LO's editing would be perfect. I am always dimensioning things in perspective, and so I have to do that in SU, with the whole host of layer, scene, and style settings so I can then display it in the LO document. Also, with the dimensioning in SU, I can't control the model stroke in LO too much because the dimensions change, too. It would be nice to set the SU model the way I want and then dimension with LO. That would save a ton of time, and make the SU file less messy.
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It would be great if the bounding box for SU viewports was the actual model and not just a square. Inadvertent clicking (or, even worse, the dreaded double-click, making it active in SU, which then takes esc and undo to fix) and moving of the model (unless there was a right-click lock option!) would become much less frequent.
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When you place a leader text, the arrow and the text come together, but not grouped. So, if you want to make copies of a leader text you have already placed (maybe because it has the text filled and you can't set the tool default to do that) it takes two clicks (or a drag, which can be difficult in densely packed drawings) to grab the arrow and the text. It wouldn't be good if they were just grouped, as then you couldn't move the test around without a double click, but what if a shift-click, for example, would select both the arrow and the text as a unit? Also, cut and pasting a leader text breaks the bond between the arrow and the text? Shouldn't that always stay slaved?
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A dynamic cloud tool would be really really handy. Like really really. Mark-ups are kind of difficult without one. I know there is one in the scrapbook, but it isn't dynamic so it always looks very poor after scaling and placing. I envision a line tool option that is just a wavy, cloud-like line. Acts like a line, can stroke and fill like a line, looks like a cloud. I would definitely use it often.
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I would like a preference setting so that all imported SU models always come in with the background off, as that is the choice I use 99.5% of the time.
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We still can't draw lines in model space, with dimensions that read model space dimensions. I know we can set dimensions manually; but it is way too easy to forget to change it back to auto once you start dimensioning the model and then start placing wrong dimensions. That probability is so scary for me that I never use manual dimensions, ever. And so then, if I am tracing over a model, I have make sure I have the trace lines on a separate layer that I can turn off for dimensioning. Better than sending drawings out with the wrong dims on them, though.
Whew, quite the list when I put it to paper. Thanks for listening. Can you tell that I have spent lots of time with SU and LO? This VBE
warrior would be much pleased if some of these changes where incorporated into future versions! -
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Hi Dave. So, you are able to save the leader text fill attribute and have it remain for new leader text as the tool default?
I would love to know how because nothing works here.
Everytime, no matter what I do, once I enter my text and hit escape, it reverts to no fill. Are you saying that this works for you?
Just the continuous crashing in SU mac is enough for me to be very frustrated with this release. And Layout, for all it's "improvements" is still very clunky and click intensive, imo I use it every day for hours, so inefficiencies in work flow are very noticeable and annoying and, any way you cut it, dimension placement in layout sucks
and we still can't draw lines in model space? That is ridiculous and a time waster. Nothing like having to set dimensions manually; pretty easy to forget to change it back to auto once you start dimensioning the model...And no way to dimension perspectives in layout? So you have to dimension in SU for that part? That is a serious liability and another time waster.
So, we have a software that is now crashing more than it used to; have had minimal functionality and workflow improvements; and minimal involvement with the developers to develop the things that power users have been asking for? Maybe not a step backward but sure isn't going forward.
I wrote up a ton of Layout suggestions and troubleshooting threads way back and posted them here. There was involvement from the developers and lots of lip service that these were being addressed back at HQ. And that resulted in what? Nothing, that's what. I really don't even know what I waste my time posting issues as they are obviously not being addressed at any level.
I use SU and LO every single day for hours and hours and, as a definite Pro user, I feel marginalized and disappointed in the lack of substantive improvements. And it adds insult to injury that some functionality has been eliminated, at least right now. But we have a shiny new Warehouse; whoopdy-do...
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Hi Chuck-
Just to let you know, a number of the LayOut team members have read that wishlist post, and I'll work up a point-by-point reply when I get a chance. Stay tuned, and thanks.
Edit: This was reposted as a separate thread, I'll follow the discussion there:
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13%26amp;t=56754Marc
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