Am having a bit of an issue when exporting a custom titleblock to PDF from Layout.
Everything shows up fine when I open the exported PDF on my own computer with Adobe but when my client opens the PDF they are seeing Cover page layers showing up on inside pages and vice versa.

I'm pretty sure I've got my layers setup right and that is shown when I open on my local machine with Adobe but why is my client seeing layers that I have not selected to be shown on those pages?

Client is opening with Nitro PDF and Internet Explorer.... the issue shows in both

Any word on this Chris?

Its a fantastic plugin thomthom, thanks very much

Awesome sleuthing!

Any use for the problem we have here?

I don't know how this works but as far as I can tell this is the line that controls it:

logLine "mode;" + @@hokou.to_s

Have poked around the documentation but I'm not really sure what logLine does

sound advice

Sonder - when you say modified do you mean that the user has opened the LO scene and changed the viewing angle (for example)?

ArCAD - thats a good idea, will put that to use

Not sure if anyone else struggled with this but I'll break it down coz it took me a few minutes of head scratching to figure out.

Once you have the scene displaying the way you want to in SU, go to
Window-->Styles and click the button that is second from the top on the right side of the Styles dialogue box (it has a little '+' symbol on it).
This will save the settings you are currently viewing in SU.
Then save the SU file.

However, if you go to LO now and right click the scene and hit "Update Reference" you may find that the section plane remains visible.
To fix this you need to right click the scene in LO, go to styles and select the new style you just saved in SU (mine was called "Default Engineering Style1" since it was a modification of the Default Engineering Style.

Your LO scene should now display exactly as it was in SU.

In Summary, if you have saved the syle in SU but the section plane remains in LO make sure that you have told LO to use the newly saved style

Has anyone else with a bit more ruby experience than me had a chance to tinker with the sketchyphysics model I linked to (above) and worked out how it modifies the watermark in real time depending on user's inputs? Is it something to do with the sketchyphysics runtime (requires sketchyphysics running?) or could it be applied to our current problem?

@unknownuser said:

I forget to click "make unique" about 50 times a week!

Tell me about it. I was certain someone must have written a script to do this but I had a browse around and it appeared they hadn't.

Frankly, I think the lack of a warning like this plugin and the errors it causes for users (who are focusing on what they are drawing on not how many components they are messing with) is a limitation to the efficiency of sketchup as many users don't use components to their full potential because they have been burned in the past.

When I concentrate really hard I can draw parts and assemblies with a lot more speed using components but the concentration required to keep track of what other parts I am modifying is a drain.

I hope this enables people to get right back into using components to their full potential.

That is awesome, pretty much the exact functionality I was looking for.

Just trying to figure out how to make that text bolder...

This sketchyphysics model modifies the watermark text in realtime during a simulation based on user inputs....not sure if its any help for this problem: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=5b618d4ba6c22ca85fd35d52fb19ea9b&prevstart=0

There is the info box near the VCB that says things like "Select Start Point" when you are using the line tool. Its way too unobtrusive in its current state as few people would notice anything it has to say, but is there a module or something attached to it that could be made more obtrusive to supply info like what is required from this plugin?

Other option is the dead simple version that displays a messagebox (although this would require the user to click "OK" every time they modified a component) - however, couldn't it be made to only apply to components that have multiple instances. That way the messagebox wouldn't appear for groups and unique components?

Being a test concept, do you want me to take down the .rb link?

@dan said:

Just off the "cuff"... but follows my example styling.

Would love to be able to knock out conceptual scripts that quickly the way sketchup has allowed me to knock out physical concept ideas quickly

Am learning a lot by going through the script and trying to make it a 'menuless' background plugin - like Chris suggested earlier.

Am surprised at the amount of work and notation you have put into it Dan, is it a script from something else that you adapted or did you write all of this "off the cuff"?

Well at least there is some kind of fix.

Excuse my ignorance, but what do edit flag X and Y do?

I've played with them in and out of the script and can't figure them out....

Also, is there anyone else out there that does engineering modelling that thinks this is a really important tool for reminding you when you could be unintentionally editing component(s)?

Sorry, I probably haven't attributed that work properly, all credit to Dan Rathburn. Dan, let me know if you don't want that link there. I assumed that since you shared the code so freely that you wouldn't mind a download link.

Really enjoy the plugin and have shown it to a few people who are really excited by it. Thanks for your help everyone

I've probably misunderstood what manifold means. I thought it meant that a component had other components that would be modified along with it?

Perhaps there is a more computationally straightforward way of notifying the user?
A simple UI popup seems to cost very little but, as someone pointed out, that requires the user to click "OK" each time they open a component.....

The point of the plugin would be to stop accidentally modifying components.

If you had to turn it on and off it would defeat the purpose because you would accidentally start modifying a manifold component and unknowingly modify all copies of that component.

It would not be intrusive because it could just induce a watermark popup in the corner of your screen.

Chris seems to understand what I'm getting at.

I have no idea what I'm doing but perhaps something like this is a start:

def onOpen(instance) setVar ("X","definitions.count") end if componentinstance.manifold? = true setVar("text","You are currently editing {getVar("X")} components") end if componentinstance.manifold? = true getVar ("text") end

Don't laugh, I've just started reading the ruby documentation this week.

To put it in terms that I actually understand:
If the user opens a component to edit it
Count how many instances of that component are manifold with the one the user has open
Call the number counted "X"
Display "X" within this sentence as a watermark in the top left corner of the screen:
You are currently editing "X" components

Also, I'm from NZ but living in India

It would have no interaction from the user and would only be a few lines of code can't imagine it would slow anything down.