Suggestions to improve Layout
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Hi Chuck and poster, great to see some meaningful discussions about LO. I like you guys use it daily and no doubt spend more time with it than my wife also so as far as she's concerned it can stay like it is!!
I am putting together a list of improvements and tweaks also; just need some extended time to put them all together along with explanations.
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Hi all-
I'm posting mostly to apologize for not responding earlier. I've been heading up a large project for the past month and haven't had much time to spare.
I have forwarded this thread to the design team for perusal. Rest assured that all of the items in this thread are on our radar, and several of them are on my personal wish list as well.
Thanks,
Marc -
Hey Marc, I got excited when I saw you posted today!
Thanks for the status report; I eagerly await further development. I am available if anyone needs clarifications, testing, etc.
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Marc! Please don't forget us!
I know base camp has probably thrown a wrench in everyone's SOP, but I really thought we were going to get some traction on improving Layout
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I'm sure the LayOut team won't forget you/us...
However, please remember that there's app. a year until next release...
I wouldn't expect much of these feature requests to make it into a possible maintenance release before SU2015...
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Don't worry, I haven't forgotten. I actually started hacking around on #10 while riding the bus up to BaseCamp on Monday. It's something I've been wanting to do for about a year but haven't managed to fit it in yet. #2 and #9 are also on my personal list.
I'd love to be able to report back that we're addressing every item, but understand that your list represents about a release's worth of effort. Multiply that by every wish-list out there (granted, there's some overlap) and I'll be busy until I retire. Which isn't a bad thing, but does explain why there are a lot of disappointed wish-listers out there.
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For clouding, would it not be better just to have a style that wrapped objects such as text? Custom edge styles would accomplish more with less I would think.
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@krisidious said:
For clouding, would it not be better just to have a style that wrapped objects such as text? Custom edge styles would accomplish more with less I would think.
This would work for objects, but what if you wanted to call attention to a portion of a SU instance? Of making notations over imported PDF's. To me, being able to manually "draw" the cloud would probably be more useful on a day to day basis. YMMV...
@marcdurant said:
Don't worry, I haven't forgotten. I actually started hacking around on #10 while riding the bus up to BaseCamp on Monday. It's something I've been wanting to do for about a year but haven't managed to fit it in yet. #2 and #9 are also on my personal list.
Awesome!! While I know that I threw out a whole release worth of wish lists , #2 is one of the ones that would have the most meaningful time savings on my workflow. Thanks for the update and I wish I was there at Basecamp to shake your hand and say thanks in person!
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You can put a line style around an inserted instance of an SU model as well. However I agree that free forming is needed. But, you can always make a rectangle or circle and then change it's style properties to be outlined...
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That's a good point! If I could draw a circle and then apply a line style of a cloud, that would be great, for sure!
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Just noticed something in Layout2014:
If I zoom to some portion of my paper in Layout, switch (click or alt-tab) to another program and switch back to Layout (alt-tab or click), it reverted to zoom all. Would prefer if Layout wouldn't change zoom. New feature in 2014?
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I am not seeing this on a Mac. When I command-tab between softwares, my zoom stays the same in Layout.
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Working on some detailed shop drawings right now and I have noticed another peculiarity.
Lets's say I have a 4 dimension string, auto scaling, snapped to sketchup geometry. And then, for whatever reason, I need to moved those dimensions further away from the model so I can add another string, or whatever. If I select all the dimensions and drag them out, it seems that randomly some of the dimensions will revert to paper space dimensions. Only some though, which is really weird to me, and only some of the time? I find myself usually erasing all the dims instead of moving them because I am paranoid that a dim will change when I move it and I won't notice.
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@otb designworks said:
...I am paranoid that a dim will change when I move it and I won't notice.
That's why I do all my dimensioning in Sketchup. 'Smart' is a potential disaster for anyone who's responsible for the measurements in construction drawings.
Smart dimensions are nice but only when adding the dimensions. After that I want them as dumb as a doorknob - until I tell a particular dimension line to update. -
@kaas said:
@otb designworks said:
...I am paranoid that a dim will change when I move it and I won't notice.
That's why I do all my dimensioning in Sketchup. Potential disaster for anyone who's responsible for the measurements in construction drawings.
Smart dimensions are nice but only when adding the dimensions. After that I want them as dumb as a doorknob - until I tell a particular dimension line to update.Second that. In my CAD package it is pretty simple. Still if I change the scale (say for a different part of the file) and make certain adjustments to a line of dimensions, it can trigger an update to the wrong dimension. Caught me sometimes when I didn't see it change. Just really bad news.
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third that... just had an entire set come off as 1/8inch instead of 3/16. Good thing the builder caught it.
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Going to quote myself here because this behavior really could use a fix in Windows.
@kaas said:
If I zoom to some portion of my paper in Layout, switch (click or alt-tab) to another program and switch back to Layout (alt-tab or click), it reverted to zoom all. Would prefer if Layout wouldn't change zoom. New feature in 2014?
Also, I use a pen tablet in Layout (as well as in Sketchup). Annoying part is, when I draw (or edit) a line and want to zoom out to another point, pressing the shortcut key for zoom breaks the line command while in Sketchup pressing <esc> after shortcut-zooming picks up the line command again. Please make layout behave the same!
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The ability to scale a object when bringing it into the drawings from scrapbooks would be an AWESOME feature. eg from 1:1 to say 1:10. This would make all the difference to those using details in their projects which require working construction drawings to be to scale.
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- A follow me tool like sketchup
- An Offset tool like sketchup!
These would allow you to draw walls in layout quicker (if required ofcourse)
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@marcdurant said:
Don't worry, I haven't forgotten. I actually started hacking around on #10 while riding the bus up to BaseCamp on Monday. It's something I've been wanting to do for about a year but haven't managed to fit it in yet. #2 and #9 are also on my personal list.
I'd love to be able to report back that we're addressing every item, but understand that your list represents about a release's worth of effort. Multiply that by every wish-list out there (granted, there's some overlap) and I'll be busy until I retire. Which isn't a bad thing, but does explain why there are a lot of disappointed wish-listers out there.
Marc! What happened!? A brand new layout and not even one of my list of suggestions was addressed!?
I have to admit that that is pretty disappointing.
To be perfectly honest, the entire layout 15 update was pretty anemic, in my opinion, though I do love the 2 segment text tool; that is a nice touch.
I read through my list and pretty much everything I wrote then is still a valid suggestion and it would sure make my day if we started to get some developer traction on them.
Help, Marc, help!!!
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