Hello,

Following along with a video tutorial on how to make an airplane model, I imported (as an image) into SketchUp 8 (free version) a .jpg of a three-view drawing of the plane.

In the next step, the narrator suggested that I click on the Transparency tool to make the drawing semi-transparent so that lines traced over the drawing are easier to see.

The icon he clicked on in the video looks like a blue-colored, transparent cube. I've looked at every toolbar option in my SketchUp but cannot find that tool. A search on the Internet didn't turn anything up.

Is that tool available in the free version of SketchUp 8? If so, how do I access it?

Oh, I also tried using the transparency slider in Color Picker, but Color Picker is grayed out. Do I need to somehow alter the .jpg I imported to make the Color Picker work on it?

Thanks,
Bill

Following up on my previous post, from googling several times, what I've found is that when someone has mentioned the same problem on other forums, they get the same suggestions I was given (above), and when they say that those suggestions don't help, the thread comes to an end.

Is there some kind of bug in SketchUp 8 that affects certain computers? Has anyone explored this issue beyond the few suggestions that are repeatedly made?

I'm new to SketchUp and excited about its possibilities. I probably can live without the shadow-moving feature but would love to know what's causing the problem, especially since the problem doesn't occur on my laptop, which also runs under Windows XP.

If there are no more suggestions for my problem, I'll assume that it's a dead end.

Bill

Thanks for your response. Below are my comments on the suggested solutions:

Upgrade to SketchUp 7.1. A new feature to reset the workspace dialog boxes was added. Go to Window > Preferences > Workspace and click on Reset Workspace.

I have the latest iteration of version 8. Tried Reset. Didn't help.

Click Window > Hide Dialogs.

"Hide Dialogs" is grayed out on my computer. Cannot access that option.

First, you want to give the browser focus, so you should select that browser from the Window menu, even if it already has a plus next to it (if it does, click it twice so it ends up with a plus and is the last thing selected. It should then have focus, even though you can't see it.

Then, you want to open its system menu using the keystroke Alt-Spacebar, then put it in Move mode by hitting M. At that point you should be able to scoot it around with the arrow keys. What you can do is to hit any arrow key once and then move your mouse back and forth, up and down, without pressing any mouse buttons. If all goes well, you should see the missing browser moving around with the mouse. Once the thing is back on-screen, click the left mouse button or hit Enter, and you should have it back.

The instructions above are unclear to me. What "Window" menu? What "plus"?

The problems I'm having are on my desktop. I completely uninstalled and reinstalled SketchUp. That didn't help. I then installed SketchUp on my laptop, and the shadow dialog box DOES work there, so at least I know it isn't something I'm doing wrong.

My final question: How important is being able to move the shadow around. If I don't have that feature, will I ever care?

If anyone has any other suggestions, please chime in.

Bill

Hi,

I am running SketchUp Version 8.0 under Windows XP.

I was working through the video titled Getting Started with SketchUp, and everything was going fine until the narrator decided to show me a cool feature whereby you can move a shadow around using sliders.

I clicked on View --> Shadows to make the shadow appear. But when I click on Window --> Shadow, the Shadow item does not get checked and no dialogue box appears. If, on the other hand, I click any other item on the drop down menu, such as Fog, for example, the item is checked and a dialogue box does appear.

By googling, I found others with the same problem. The solutions provided didn't help--me and in more cases those that were expressing the problem.

I've tried the Windows --> Preferences --> Reset Workspace solution, but that doesn't work.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Bill