Why I am using a laptop exclusively is a kind of long story but the bottom line is that I am a retired guy who does some part time modeling (less than 10hrs/month) for a company that builds car washes. It is their laptop which is a gaming machine with plenty of memory and a 17" screen. I do most of the work sitting in the kitchen and do not have an external monitor sitting in here for me to work with. If I had a dedicated work environment I would definitely use an external monitor. They recruited me and got me started using SketchUp. I do not have an engineering background and although I like computer graphics, I do not consider myself an artist in any stretch of anyone's imagination. However, all of that said, I am enjoying learning how to use SketchUp and am trying to expand my knowledge base.
I like the concept of the trays because they allow me to at least semi organize my work environment the way it is most convenient for me. I tried having the trays docked on the right but the constant flying in and out and having to try to catch the tray sometimes and having it disappear at the wrong time because of mouse movement kind of gets to me.
I organized them as follows:
Objects - this try combines Entity Info, Materials, and Soften Edges since these are the most used facilities when developing components or working on model layouts. I also use the Entity Info to assign items in the layout to a Layer for later controlling what is visible in a given scene.
Components - I put this try by itself because I have build around 200 components (pieces of car wash equipment) that I then use in the layout for a car wash.
Scenes/Layers- I combined these two because I use scenes in every layout to show different views of the car wash layout. A couple of those scenes show dimensions and text that tells what each piece of equipment is and is location in feet along the conveyor. By combining the Scenes/Layers into a single tray can easily manage which layers are visible in a scene without jumping back and forth to different trays.
Outliner - The only thing in this tray is the outliner. This gives me quick access to the outliner and managing the organization of the layout. I do not use this tray very often but it does give me access to the facility.
Styles - I have a pretty standard style that I use for all of my car wash layouts so I do not mess with them very often. I have also added things like shadows, fog, & match photo combined on this tray because I rarely these function.
Help - Again, I rarely use this tray but it is there if I need it.
Here is an image of my current tray configuration:
Current Tray configuration
I do have this one docked on the right side of the screen and is always there. I have found this to be more convenient for me and the way I work.
