@gaieus said:

It depends which plugin you installed. The plugin tab is only there when there is a plugin that registers itself under that menu. Most of them do but others may go to anywhere (even in the context menu).

So which plugin was it?

If you go to SketchUp > Preferences > Extensions and activate ruby script examples and / or utilities, some default plugins get activated and your plugin menu appears. In any case, after installing or activating a plugin needs a restart of SU).

Gaieus, it was one of thomthom's plugins, Material Replacer (1.1.0) — 12 January 2010. I followed your instructions on to activate the ruby scripts and the plugin tab is now there. I had several plugins in sketchup7, but right now there is only a "cost" plugin. I still don't see the material changer plugin, maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. Thanks for your help

It could be a firewall setting...on one of my PC's, I had to turn off the firewall to download something thru the component browser.

Martin, the problem with softening exterior edges is that you end up with strange shading typically shown as a diagonal shadow on the surfaces. If you don't want to see the edges, it would be better to hide them with Shift and the Eraser tool. Hiding them won't create the appearance of the shadows on the surfaces.