Posts made by jason_maranto

I don't believe that for a second -- I think he has seen every word I've posted.

If I really did scare him away then he is already a lost cause, and I misread his potential.

As I said though, there is a limited time frame for the validity of this -- and the window is closing rapidly, at which point I will go quiet on the topic again. Striking while the iron is hot is worthwhile, but droning on and on is waste of everyone's time. I've said my piece, he'll have 12 months to put together his response.

In case you are wondering I also have my own critics, and I definitely put effort into responding to their criticism via my work. Talk is cheap, if you've got something to prove you must show it.

Best,
Jason.

I guess you don't really understand -- I'm trying to wake him from his stupor.

By calling him out as thoroughly as possible I am putting the onus on him to prove me wrong... if he has any personal pride in his work he will respond. If not, then he will shortly be removed and I will not have to do anything about it anyway.

I'd prefer that he step up his game -- Layout was enough to convince me he has it in him, but he needs to prove it again and again to show it wasn't a fluke.

Best,
Jason.

I'll relate a story to you -- perhaps this will clarify why I do some of the things I do:

Frank Frazetta was a great fantasy artist, but because he was so successful and because things came to him fairly easily, he was not the most motivated artist. Once he had achieved a certain level of success he would "coast" for long periods of time... the only thing that would shake him out of these creative stupors were the critics.

What I mean is, as long as people remembered how great the work he put out was, people would leave him alone and he could be comfortably "lazy". But after a while people would start saying things like "He's lost it" or "He's not that good, it was only a fluke"... etc.

Invariably, this would inflame his sense of pride and he would then produce a series of masterpieces just to vindicate himself (in his own eyes, as well as publicly).

After he had successfully re-established his dominance he would begin to coast again and the cycle would repeat.

I heard this from Frank Frazetta's own lips when I met him in person as a younger man, just as I was starting my own artistic career -- this encounter made a great impression on me. What I took from that is: even the best of us need to be pushed if we want to achieve our true potential.

I push hard -- even relentlessly. Myself, as well as those around me... it often makes me a difficult person to deal with, but I see it as vitally necessary.

Best,
Jason.

As I've said many times, the community makes SketchUp worthwhile... this has been true for as long as I've been using SketchUp, and has only become more true over time.

Due to that fact, it has often puzzled me as to how SketchUp has interfaced with the community... or not, as the case may be.

Part of the reason I have such disdain for "darling" is I have very carefully watched his interactions with the users. What I've seen is a person who is perhaps nice seeming and polite, but rather dismissive of the user base and very superior in his own mind. This is not a positive thing... it could be a positive thing if he were a great visionary, a man gifted with insight that passed the comprehension of the masses. After all, such a gifted person should follow their own judgement... but "darling" is very clearly not such a person.

I do think such a person was instrumental in the creation of SketchUp, but they are long gone -- and the people left behind simply do not have the genius to carry the work forward. The genius types can dazzle with sporadic displays of creative inspiration. We non-genius types must get by on hard-work -- going above and beyond, delivering more than is asked. This is why I use the word "craftsmanship" when describing what I think the SketchUp team should be focusing on delivering.

I'll also be blunt and say that "darling" (or his staff) have never gone out of their way to support this place -- to the contrary they have gone out of their way to make sure they are much better represented elsewhere (whether that be a forum, or the new plugin warehouse). Never-mind the user base has chosen (and continues to choose) this place, that doesn't matter -- what matters is they are not in control and that's simply not acceptable. This is just one example of the dismissive attitude I am talking about with "darling" -- if you watch closely you will see it clearly.

This is at the heart of what I think is fundamentally wrong with the SketchUp development process. There is a need for clear-eyed understanding at the helm, especially in light of the fact that SketchUp has re-entered the world of commercial software after so long under the Google worldview... which hasn't done them any favors in mentally preparing then for re-entering the harsh commercial landscape.

Best,
Jason.

All great points.

On those blog posts -- seriously, I've seen less spin-mastering from White House press conferences... it was quite impressive. If all that insane creativity would have been channeled into software coding instead, we might have had a worthwhile "update".

Best,
Jason.

@frederik said:

Just remember, overdosing on negativity isn't particularly helpful...
Having spend many years with you in this community, it's as if you're a completely different person, compared to the one I used to know...
Usually you're far smarter than this...

Being negative is not usually my thing. I much prefer being helpful and building up, rather than tearing down. However, I've already tried making my voice heard via friendly participation in the last rounds of voting and wish-listing, as well as discussions here and elsewhere. Now I've tried being a (hopefully somewhat entertaining) pain in the butt... with the pure intention of getting attention for my issues with how things are being run.

But no matter the approach, I've always tried to participate in good faith. As other people have intimated, if I wasn't here at all then you would know how I really feel. There is some small hope left in me for SketchUp... but I'm certainly going to have to be convinced that things are different before coming back into the fold.

This gripefest only has a limited time window of opportunity -- after all they should be setting up for SketchUp 10 in twelve months... and I'd like to be able to recommend the next update.

Whatever the outcome, I can at least say I gave my best effort towards making my concerns heard, and I tried everything I could think of.

As a side note -- there was another software package I used (and taught) for a very long time, that was going down the tubes for several consecutive versions -- and I thought for sure it was done for good. But they brought on all new blood in the development dept, and started paying more attention to the user feedback, and today I am happy to say it is a totally worthwhile software once more. The same could happen with SketchUp...

Best,
Jason.

@arail1 said:

Unfortunately, maybe because I've always trusted my relations with SketchUp, I downloaded and paid for the upgrade before I saw what it was. I draw for a living and $95 doesn't make or break my day but I do think the symbolic aspect of this is important. I might not have upgraded had I understood the whole picture.

I agree with your entire post -- and I would say that it is unfortunate. However, you are not alone. And for that reason I immediately warned several friends to not upgrade as soon as I saw what SketchUp 9 contained (or didn't, as there wasn't really much there but a price tag and a new name).

I've been a bit more theatrical in my approach to protesting this "update", mostly because it is so hard to break through the "Oh, well that's just the way it is... no use in complaining." apathetic mindset that SketchUp seems to have successfully cultivated amongst a large portion of the user base.

You can call them fanboys, but I actually think of them more as battered wives -- as in battered wife syndrome. The violence in this case being the perpetration of "darling" style SketchUp development upon the users. With the end result of it somehow being our responsibility to make SketchUp better for them... and even pay extra for that "privilege". As in: "It's not "darlings" fault SketchUp 9 sucks -- I'm just demanding too much" -- or some such whiny drivel.

Best,
Jason.

@thomthom said:

It's not so much as want - it's more a case of priority of resources I expect. I doubt there are any conspiracies against us.

You are really not getting into the spirit of this thread -- you've gotta go for the throat! For instance I could take your comments and return them like this:

First off, it's not a question of "want"... it's very likely a question of can't -- as in gross incompetence in leadership ("darling") is the most likely answer.

Secondly, resource management must be extremely poor to deliver this "update" (such as it is) after nearly 3 years of development. I guess you could argue they've only had 9 months with Trimble -- but exactly what were they doing the previous 2 years between when SketchUp 8 came out and Google sold SketchUp? It just doesn't add up...

Finally, Since you can't say for certain, how do you know there are no conspiracies against us? I sense a conspiracy to have us finance the buyout of SketchUp for very little in return from Trimble... so far that particular conspiracy theory seems to be holding up to the evidence.

Best,
Jason.

@juanv.soler said:

Up to what extent working with Ruby as what it is now , 2.013 update included , things could improve ?

What things could not ever be done ?

I'm certainly not the best expert on this topic and people like Dan and ThomThom would be far more qualified than I to suggest improvements.

But here's what I think.

The single most important thing would be to open the native tools/windows/dialogs/etc. to 3rd party developers. By this I mean if somebody wanted to add a function to the Entity Info dialog, or place a tool tutorial directly into the Instructor window, or add functionality to the Push/Pull tool they could.

Obviously that would have to come with some oversight and tighter regulation -- but SketchUp/3rd party collaboration will never truly be integrated until this happens... and without that, user adoption will always be less than optimal.

Now that said, I do not expect this to ever happen... "darling" is far too in love with, and protective of, his ideals of simplicity to ever allow infidels to touch his precious.

Best,
Jason.

@thomthom said:

Here's the crux of why I don't want plugins assimilated into SketchUp - what you find essential is different fro what I find essential is different from what other find essential. If one then try to find one big compromise then you end up with a huge list of functions - menus, toolbars etc. In other words bloat. Just look at behemoths such as AutoCAD and 3DStudio Max - I use them both and they have a huge collection of functions. Yet, I only use a small fraction of them and I feel lost on every update they make where they rearrange the UI in an attempt to make it more manageable.

It is a much easier thing to selectively remove elements from the software than to add them -- for a very elegant solution to this problem check out this nifty UI item in form.z 7.x:

http://www.formz.com/manuals/formz7/!SSL!/WebHelp/03083_Tool_Manager_and_Favorites.html

I'm specifically talking about the custom Favorites palette, which appears at the current cursor location and is invoked via a keyboard shortcut.

Obviously, one needs to know the program very well before this becomes the default way of interfacing with the program -- but the upside is tremendous in terms of maximizing screen real-estate and narrowing focus to tools you actually use.

Best,
Jason.

@thomthom said:

Which incidentally match the point of time where Google bought SketchUp...

I see no gripe here!!! -- don't make me beat you with your own mod wand

Let me show you how it's done: SketchUp = teh Suck!

Best,
Jason.

@dan rathbun said:

The AutoCAD 12 interface was more advanced & better than the current SU2013 interface. That was about 20 years ago (pre Win95 as I was running it on Win 3.11 for Workgroups.)

No doubt. SketchUp has never exactly been a sterling example of UI design -- which largely contributes to its perception as a toy. I have often wondered why Layout has had a better UI than Sketchup for 6 years... Of course neither is anything close to the best UI I have seen, but Layout is far superior.

What I meant though is that the actual functionality of most of the software has not altered since version 6 -- all that has happened is slight refinement. So using Sketchup is like climbing into a time machine and going back 5-6 years ago.

Best,
Jason.

Based on track record, I'd hardly say real creativity is a strength of the current SketchUp dev team... they seem largely content to slightly refine the software with "safe" updates, and instead focus on integrating web based tools. This may be the fallout of years of association with Google -- what we have now is a more web integrated tool, but not in any way a better modeler.

Big ideas with grand vision simply will not come from this team -- but instead of buying plugins, I would think it a better strategy to bring on the original plugin authors to do their thing... which seems to be happening to some degree. However, since the SketchUp team has long since lost its original focus as a developer of modeling tools, I wonder if the new blood would be used in that way anyway.

It could very well be that the only reason to bring on plugin developers is to strengthen the link to 3rd party developers -- thereby letting people who actually have some creativity do the all heavy lifting for any future development.

Here's my issue with this -- adoption of 3rd party tools (versus native tools) by the larger (more casual) user base may be hampered by a few factors.

• Consistency of UI -- the 3rd party plugins are often not SketchUp user friendly, and require learning new thought/working processes that many users may not embrace. This can be partially attributed to the fact the the overarching UI infrastructure for more advanced operations is simply not in place... and I doubt it ever will be. What I mean is there is a distinct separation of the native tools windows/dialogs/toolbars, and anything made for 3rd party tools...this is prohibitive to the non-power user to learn.

• Speed -- there is no doubt that native compiled code will always be faster executing than Ruby.

• Additional costs -- better tools often cost additional money, with Trimble being more aggressive with the pricing of SketchUp there will be less money available to throw at 3rd party plugins. Users will expect more from the native tools because they are paying more... whether Trimble intends to deliver more is doubtful, but the expectation will be there nonetheless.

This is the reason my preferences run towards a more comprehensive solution like form.z -- all those "plugin-type" tools are native and they obey all of the UI logic and flow naturally from one tool to the other. Concepts can be re-used to shorten the users learning curve, and once mastered become building blocks for more advanced techniques/tools. Whereas in SketchUp each developer is an island unto himself -- which is by design, due to how SketchUp is segregated.

Best,
Jason.

There were even more parties working towards similar goals -- what you should notice from that is alot of wasted double effort on the part of the community due to the SketchUp teams absurd secrecy policies.

Why do I call the policies absurd? Because there is (and has been) absolutely nothing worth keeping a secret about SketchUp development for quite some time. They are so far behind the times that their development cycle is like reading a history book of how software was made 5 years ago...

Anybody who wanted to steal any worthwhile ideas from SketchUp only needs a copy of SketchUp 6... and even that might be dubious.

I have always been sincere in saying that without this community SketchUp would be a joke -- and despite the best efforts of this community, they seem intent on remaining a joke.

Best,
Jason.

Excellent addition! I see some features there which many SketchUp users would be very happy to have access to.

Best,
Jason.

Alright, so hopefully I clearly established why I think this “upgrade” fails... Lets look at what you can do about it.

First off, don't “upgrade” – if you are free version user don't pay the $590... and if you are an existing Pro user don't pay the $95.

This next bit is going to anger a lot of people and I can't help that – furthermore, it's not really their fault and they will be penalized for that, but there is a real need to motivate this particular group to speak out.

What I am talking about is 3rd party developers – the user should not purchase any plugin that is made for 2013, nor should they purchase any plugin that they believe fills a need that SketchUp should fill in-house (as part of SketchUp proper). The reality is that the 3rd party developers have the largest voice in Trimbles ear here. By the user base withholding funds they (3rd party developers) will become much more motivated to speak out and apply real pressure to make Trimble change course. Conversely, if the users keep the stream of revenue coming, they have very little motivation to rock the boat.

Obviously, that creates some additional hardships for the user – but remember the real responsible party for any hardships you endure are Trimble and the SketchUp team. Free plugins are obviously exempt from this... and I do encourage you to donate if you can.

Furthermore, I think it imperative that users take on an additional software package (if they have not already done so) – by supporting a competitor of SketchUp you are applying additional market pressure to Trimble... which in turn should result in better future SketchUp updates for everybody. There are many fine packages out there to choose from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. A few I think are particularly worthwhile looking into are listed with links below:

bozai3d or form.z
Rhino3D
MoI3D
Blender

If you cannot afford to financially support a commercial SketchUp competitor, then support the Open Source movement by using Blender. Supporting Open Source software applies pressure to the entire industry to step-up their game and can only improve the competitive situation.

Do these things and you will be applying pressure in ways that Trimble cannot ignore.

Adding a response to this thread also applies pressure, and I encourage everybody who is dissatisfied with the status quo to post, even if it is only to say "I agree". The mortal enemy of change is apathy... conversely you can change things by simply banding together and speaking out (with keyboard and wallet). They do read this stuff -- it's a fact.

Best,
Jason.

I've already said a lot of what I wanted to say elsewhere, and in the absence of new material to rage against from Trimble, I will wrap this up with 2 posts. The first post will attempt to solidify what I think went so wrong with SketchUp 9 (I'm not calling it 2013 anymore). The second post will try to address steps the users could possibly take to do something to make sure this never happens again.

First off, lets establish the fact that $95 is not much money for an upgrade... given that fact, the expectations are extremely low as to what the dev team has to accomplish to earn such a small sum of money. The reality is that they failed to even do the minimal amount needed to earn such a paltry upgrade fee.

I would be willing to pay three times that amount for a true upgrade – changes that made SketchUp relevant and competitive again. So hopefully we have established the issue here is not price per se, but rather value... the price can be whatever they would like to charge, but the value of the software must be equal to the price or there is no fair deal.

Secondly, the changes to the licensing are a slap in the face of professional users at every level.

For the users who were previously using the free version for commercial work, the idea that they must now pay $590 for essentially the same piece of software is ludicrous. The reason many of them never purchased Pro in the first place is Layout and the other Pro-only features were not compelling to them – adding nothing of substance to SketchUp proper make the fee to upgrade to Pro unappealing to say the least. Where is the incentive for these users to part with $590?

For users who were already users of SketchUp Pro, Trimble has made the mistake of trying to bully an already paying user base into paying even more for lackluster upgrades. First, the price for an upgrade has been $95 every 2 years – now they want to charge $190 every 2 years ($95 per year) for what amounts to hardly any value added. Secondly, if the (already paying mind you) users refuse to pay the $95 per year by skipping, they are penalize through no fault of their own – this amounts to the user being forced to pay a penalty fee for the SketchUp teams poor performance... which is in no way the fault of the user. This financial burden of failure to compete is the sole responsibility of Trimble and should never be placed on the users.

Finally, and most disturbingly, they may not even be done fleecing the loyal users – as it appears there is some possibility that Trimble made SketchUp “bolt-ons” may be released through the warehouse at even more additional cost.

Shame on you Trimble, where are your ethics? Where is your pride in your craftsmanship as software developers? Where is your competitive spirit as developers of software?

Best,
Jason.

@mike lucey said:

@Jason, Chris Cronin is Business Development at Trimble Navigation London, United Kingdom, so probably not involved in the nuts and bolts of SketchUp development, not like 'darling' JohnB, so play nice. Also he has a good Irish surname, 'Cronin is an Irish surname which originated in County Cork and is derived from the Old Irish word crón, meaning saffron-colored'. I have no idea of the significance of the saffron but I do know its red! At least he stepped into the lion's den, so to speak ...... we don't want to completely traumatise him, now do we. Hey, we might even get a few more TSU folks in to fight their corner if we lighten up a little.

Gotcha Mike,

Hey Chris, nice to meet you -- I'm actually usually very helpful and polite (perhaps that might be unbelievable to you right now), but I have been known to show a nasty streak occasionally. Unfortunately, I may have spilled a bit too much bile on you undeservedly.

Although I would appreciate it if you were to pass that bile up the food chain and let higher-ups at Trimble know exactly how displeased I am. I've gone toe-to-toe with several software company CEOs, so I'm ready if they are

Best,
Jason.

@solo said:

I can agree with this, make it a separate product, deduct it from SU which will reduce SU's price, what about style builder?

I've always thought Style Builder belongs with Layout -- to me Layout is the "render engine" for SketchUp styles... it's just too perfect for that purpose not to be used that way.

I had some ideas for expanding those aspects out more that I discussed with "darling" directly (on Google+) -- given his history with Layout I think those might become a reality at some point.

Best,
Jason.

@dan rathbun said:

Maybe a good argument for separating the distribution of SKetchUp and Layout into separate packages ?

I'd be all for this -- so long as the new versions of Layout could work with SketchUp data from old versions (which I can't see why not).

Layout is the only thing worth updating these days.

Best,
Jason.