OK, after about an hour of playing (and 1 bug splat) around here's what I found on my mac:

What works:

• installation
• toolbar
• web dialogue (layers panel window)
• add layer
• add group
• name/rename group/layer
• nest / move
• import layers through TIGs plugin - fills layer panel
• layer visibility toggle

Doesn't work:

• group visibility (no effect at all)
• delete layer (no effect at all)
• delete group (deletes group and nested layers from panel, but not Layers window)
• purge unused layers

Big Problems:

• existing layers don't automatically fill layer panel
• on save and close / reopen, layer panel loses all layers
• on switching focus to a second model window, the layer panel loses all layers
  ( probably related to the fact that Mac OS allows multiple windows in a single application instance whereas Windows allows only one window per application instance (therefore multiple model windows = multiple SU instances) IIANM.

Hope this helps. This is going to be an awesome plugin once it's debugged!

@jiminy-billy-bob said:

I'll look into that. In the meantime, you can use templates. They should keep the nested/sorted structure.

Cool.

Given that you report some people apparently using the beta on their macs, maybe I will try it out as-is to help with user testing. Don't have the knowledge to help on the Ruby front, but can at least add my voice through bug reporting (assuming that the current beta works at all on my mac).

I'm running SU8 on OSX 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard)... will let you know how it goes.

@arcad-uk said:

Is there a confident date for Mavericks release? I am set on getting an iMAC to escape my PC hell but can't decide whether I should wait for the release which may also bring a rumoured (Haswell?) processor upgrade or just bite the bullet now.

All I've seen to date is pure speculation. MacWorld UK extrapolates a Nov. release based on a 6 month cycle between developer's initial exposure and final release: http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/?newsid=3436940

@unknownuser said:

I am set on getting an iMAC to escape my PC hell but can't decide whether I should wait for the release which may also bring a rumoured (Haswell?) processor upgrade or just bite the bullet now.

MacRumours has a good buyer's guide with buy / don't buy recommendations based on where products are in their life cycle: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

iMacRecommendation: Don't Buy - Updates soon
Last Release: November 30, 2012
Days Since Update: 277 (Avg = 335)
Recent Rumors: Aug 23 2013: iMac Discounts and Stock Shortages at Third-Party Retailers Hint at Approaching Haswell Update
So advice is... be patient as iMac Haswell update is coming soon! Latest I can imagine would be November - given how last year's late iMac release killed their holiday sales... though given reported stock-outs and clearance pricing, it may well be just around the corner.

@jiminy-billy-bob said:

I will, but first I'm learning what are the differences between windows and mac.

Looking forward to a functioning Mac version!

A question / suggestion:
Any chance that your plugin will work with the TIG's Layer Name Export/Import plug-in in a way that will preserve/establish the layer hierarchy?

I would love to have standardized, predefined layer outline sets — depending on the type of model being built: i.e. furniture, cabinetry, architectural, product design — that could be loaded from a .layers file on starting a new model. I do that now, but being able to import an outlined layer structure would be killer!

@arcad-uk said:

@db11: If you are keeping windows "primarily" for Excel, do you know MS Office is available for the MAC?

Yes - have been on various versions of Office Mac since OS7.

Pages is great. Numbers is nice too, but still missing too many functions for my purposes - plus I have a lot of macros / VBA scripts that require Excel for full compatibility. I've tried replacing MS Office with Libre Office... and while it's mostly compatible, there's still a few problems with some workbooks / functions /scripts.

I'm resigned to sticking with Excel, at least for now. Excel Mac 2011 lags even Excel 2010: my versions — 2004 Mac; 2003 PC — are seriously long-in-the-tooth, so will probably jump straight to Excel 2013. While I hate to give MS my money, Excel is still their one must-have for me.

I've heard lots of nasty feedback about Windows 8, but will wait till 8.1 before deciding on that or Windows 7 to install under BootCamp. (I'm currently running Windows 2003 on a vintage Fujitsu Lifebook... a 750MHz Pentium3!)

Thanks very much Dave. Very helpful info...

I'm planning on upgrading my Mac this fall, as well as upgrading to SU Pro 2013 (haven't upgraded from SU8 yet due to the changes in licensing from Free to Make, as I do occasionally use SU output professionally).

As part of my Mac upgrade I am going to install Windows, either with BootCamp or Parallels — primarily for Excel (another program whose Mac version lags / sucks more than the windows one). Since SU is my second most-used program, and I'll have an available Windows environment, I wanted to consider whether running SU Pro in Windows would be the better option.

If it involves buying a separate license for each version, then it will be a lot tougher choice... not sure if I would buy a Windows-only Pro license to run on my new mac: seems almost sacrilegious!

Thanks for the reply Dave.

Have the toolbars been improved at all in SU 2013 on the mac? I find the inconsistency of toolbar behavior annoying, and alternate between cursing SU and OSX — since I'm never sure on any given issue which is to blame.

I also detest materials management generally in SU — thank God ThomThom/TIG/Fredo6 et al.. for plugins — though I understand that it's worse on the mac (due to SU using native tools). As I mentioned, this is one of the things that has me considering the windows version.

Do you notice any difference in stability (bug splats, freezes etc) and/or performance (open/save times, plugin run times, etc) from one platform to the other?

Thanks again for the info.

Hoping to finally be able to spring for SU Pro sometime this fall and I have a few questions:

1. For those users that have experience with SU Pro 2013 on both platforms, which is preferred and why?

2. For Mac users running SU for Windows under BootCamp or Parallels, what has your experience been?

• How well does SU 2013 [Windows] run under BootCamp?
• Is Parallels a better/worse option?
• Is there a big hit in performance running under a the Parallels virtual machine?
• Is BootCamp the better option for that reason?

4. Would you recommend simply staying Mac all-round, or is it worth it to manage the windows version on a mac? (I'm not about to switch to a windows machine, but I am considering running SU [Windows] for broader plug-in compatibility and better materials management.)

5. Do I need a separate license for Windows and Mac versions if they are both installed on the same machine?

Thanks for your input.

[ThomThom: hoping you see this, since I understand you've recently added a Mac to your arsenal for testing purposes. I would be especially interested to hear your take to date]

I've been waiting for this forever...

@unknownuser said:

It does not work on OSX !
I tested it on windows 7 and 8, with Sketchup 8 and 2013, and Internet Explorer 10.

Does that mean I'll just have to wait longer — i.e. it doesn't work YET on OSX, but should with additional testing / debugging — or is it that it CAN'T work on OSX?

Really hoping that a future release will include OSX compatibility. Great work in any case!

ThomThom has a great post on his website explaining the difference:

Soft vs Smooth vs Hidden Edges

I notice there is some confusion from time to time between the Soft, Smooth and Hidden property of edges in SketchUp. Soft and Smooth is often mixed up and less people know the difference between t…

Procrastinators Revolt! (www.thomthom.net)

@rich o brien said:

That's dedication!

Not sure if we'll release this after seeing you have it down to a fine art

Well it was a bit of work, but I was so confused about all my plugins: what they were; their location, type, state; and what they were used for. So I first built the index:

Then I started thinking about how to better break it down - what plugins are used for what purpose / type of modeling. That's when I added the Sets worksheet.

Not sure it was all worth the effort -- the problem was not just the time to set it up, but regularly updating the index to keep info current. It did help me sort the confusion in my brain, but that's all it did! Didn't help a damn bit inside of SU - all the manual moving of plugins from one folder to another, shutdown/relaunch SU... ugh!!

Suffice to say that your work has taken care of all of those problems and with the next release will implement my most wanted added feature -- plugin sets. (I thought it would be a great feature to add to SU -- after they finally delivered an extension manager -- but didn't see much point in submitting a feature request to the SU team). You've bested them all the way around in plugin management, and can't wait for v1.3.

F...ing Fantastic!!

Awesome job Rich!

I've been imaging the utility of an extension set manager for 2 years, and it looks like you've picked my mind. This is the one I built in Excel as part of a Plugin Index, so I could keep track of all the damn things! Problem was all the actual management of the plugins was still manual inside of SU, so your SU Tools has been a godsend.

Your hard work and good thinking is much appreciated. Many thanks.

Thanks for the quick reply Chris.

I just tried disabling and reloading the plugin (BoardMaker v1.0) and it appears to have cleaned up the issue.

Hoping someone can help me with this. On launching SU, the ruby console pops up this warning:

WWX Exception: undefined method[]' for SketchupExtension::Array:Class
(eval):3119: warning: parenthesize argument(s) for future version
(eval):3142: warning: parenthesize argument(s) for future version`

Anyone know which PlugIn is at fault?
What can/should I do to correct the issue? (short of disabling each extension one-at-a-time, and relaunching to ID the offending plug-in)

So far I have just dismissed the warning, and continued working as per usual -- here doesn't seem to be any additional unstability (so far).

@thomthom said:

I tried one of them 3d navigation buttons once, for flying through the model it worked well, but I didn't feel I could control it well enough when modeling.

Re: my own learning curve with the Space Navigator, I found it took me a couple of weeks of steady use to gain acceptable speed and navigation precision. (though 4 weeks in, I'm still gaining skill with it). It's different enough from any other way of working that there's a significant amount of brain-hand motor re-mapping to do.

If you're not convinced ahead of time of the eventual value, you probably won't make it far enough down the learning curve to gain the real benefit of the new approach. (bit like switching OS's and getting used to different mapping of functions to keystrokes/clicks - and whether you make it through the unlearning-relearning cycle before throwing up your hands in frustration!)

I've been using a Space Navigator for a few weeks (would have liked a Space Mouse Pro, but it's 3x the price) and like it a lot. I use it in conjunction with a Wacom tablet - which I find a lot less tiring for long sessions than a mouse. (the hand and wrist are in a more natural and relaxed position.)

By thoughtful configuration of the 2 buttons on the pen, 4 on the tablet and the 2 on the 3D mouse, I can substantially reduce - but not totally eliminate - the number of trips to the keyboard with my left hand.

There is a learning curve for the 3D mouse... but it is so adept for navigating the model (zoom. orbit and pan smoothly and simultaneously), that for me at least, I find it has substantially speeded my modeling.

I do get why some people aren't enamored with 3D mice - for similar reasons that many people don't like graphics tablets or trackballs... (which I also use - though not with SU). Seems to me input device preferences are quite personal, and it can take a while to find and tweak the optimal setup for you individually.

I first heard of the 3D mouse in an interview I read of Ken 28875, and a long time later finally pulled the trigger - with no regrets. I only use it with SketchUp, so no help on the behavior across applications.

Is there a way to reset the default font for the 3D text tool?
(SU 8 / Mac OSX 10.6)

So far I have to change the font each time I place.
After each placement it reverts to Lucinda Grande.

I haven't found any setting for the default text.
Am I missing something, or just stuck with another minor SU annoyance?

Thanks,

Doug

Andrew, thanks for taking the time to reply and explain.

@andrews said:

As of SketchUp 8.0, we only support Intel CPUs on Mac.

I knew that was the case for the full version, and suspected that it would be so for the viewer as well). Was just hoping that I might be able to continue to use my old G4 PowerBook as a presentation/site device with clients and subs.

The other use is in having a simplified application for the client to download on their own machine when you aren't physically present to walk them through it. A skin on the full app that hid the complexity and all but the navigation controls would accomplish the same thing.
IOW, SU opens on first use in interface 'viewer mode', with a toggle for 'drawing mode' (which would enable full menus / toolbars), would obviate the need for a viewer for this use case.

@anssi said:

If the development of the viewer takes resources away from the development of the full application, I am all for scrapping it altogether.

I would put it differently: if Viewer development takes away resources that could be put to developing a new iOS/tablet viewer -for my iPad to come- then scrap it! (...not that Goggle will admit to any such development, if they were)

@gaieus said:

I would actually like to see a LayOut viewer instead.

When I eventually upgrade to SU Pro, I may be on board with you there - but not at the expense of an iOS / Android viewer.

Thanks for the responses.

Doug

Does anyone know whether the new SU Viewer 8 will run on a G4?
(can't find any info on the SU Help site)
Or is it the same as SU 8 and will only run on Intel processor - as I would assume?

I know I can always save a model as SU7 to view on my old 12" G4 Powerbook, but would be nice if I didn't have to anymore.

By the way was Viewer 8 just released? (with the maintenance update?)
Seems to me the last time I checked (a few weeks back), only Viewer 7 was available.

Thanks,

Doug

@unknownuser said:

I'm not totally sure I understand your verbage regarding the RAM but I think you're saying that each instance of it is using 700mb? I've got two instances open right now, one with a 1mb file and the other with a 100mb file. The 1mb file takes almost 200mb of RAM and the 100mb file is using almost 900mb.

On the Mac, there is only ever one instance of the app itself, with multiple windows (one for each open file). What I was referring to was actual RAM allocation (real) vs. virtual memory on the HD. I meant that when there is 700 MB of actual RAM used by SU there is another 700 MB of virtual memory allocated for it. (though in subsequent tests, it's not always 1 to 1 like I had thought)

In any case I concur that it seems likely more RAM will improve things. Have been planning to top it up it to 4 GB, but now thinking I may max it out at 8.
The reference numbers are helpful too.

Thanks.