Box and Gaieus, thanks! Another question, tho ...sometimes what you suggested works fine. Other times, though, the drop-down menu that gives the options to click "receiving shadows" and "cast shadows" won't appear. I only see a layer field and a box to check for "hidden." This mostly happens when I select a whole item (such as a small house or room), not a part of it. Any idea why?

I have multiple copies of an item on one file. Is there a way to apply shadows to just ONE item and leave the other alone? Right now, the shadows apply to everything (or is the answer "there's a plugin for that", lol)

I do, I do read the basics! There's just ...so much STUFF.

"but after some hacker worked out how to force the residual Pro features to stay active after it had officially reverted to Free,"

LOL, some people are just too clever.

I've followed this guy's tutorial and it worked for me:

Would you say this the best way to install all plugins?

I've looked at some plugins recommended here. It appears that Podium and Twilight are pay products, so I haven't downloaded them yet. I downloaded Kerkythea and another plugin that I thought would enable me to add/remove toolbar buttons (i still can't customize like that, but the plugin, whatever else it does, appears to have installed correctly).

What I'm confused about is this. I thought plugins worked from inside SketchUp. Kerkythea appears to be a stand-alone program into which you import SketchUp files. Is this correct? And it appears you have to install yet another piece of software -an exporter- to be able to import your files. I downloaded the exporter, too. Was that a necessary step?

Yet a Kerkythea toolbar now appears inside my SketchUp program. So can I utilize Kerkythea from inside SketchUp, too?

Finally, it seems that to get the Plugin menu to appear on on the top of the SketchUp screen, you must go to windows/preferences/extensions and click "ruby script examples." Is this correct? I've seen a lot of instructions online talking about installing a ruby script to get the Plugins menu to appear, but I don't think that's necessary if I just enable the ruby script examples, right?

Still trying to figure it all out... thanks for any insight!

Gaieus, thx! I do find it curious that sometimes that point works so perfectly for me, and other times (most of the times) it doesn't.

Well, the Scale tool works all the time for me, whereas the Move tool is completely hit-or-miss. With Move, I have to slowly run the mouse around the perimeter, watching for that flashing black point. Then I go back to that point -since it doesn't appear until after you pass it- and it doesn't always work; the cylinder warps unevenly. So I circle the perimeter again, looking for another flashing black point, but this time none of them show up, or I still can't get one that I find to work. Very tedious. I must be doing something wrong.

Thanks, those links were very helpful! Wonder why those points are so well hidden. Kind of like an "easter egg," lol.

edited to add -seems like just using the Scale tool while holding the control key is a lot easier.

How do you know which is a cardinal point? I didn't notice it being a different color or having a tooltip that says that.

And now that I posted that, I just did it ...it appears that I have to find the one, perfect endpoint on the outer ring to grab. Only that endpoint will work. Correct?

At 3.00 he uses the Move tool to effortlessly and perfectly warp the candleholder about its center. When I try to do it, it just ...warps. Left, right, every way except the way he shows. What's the secret? I've tried the Scale tool, and that gets better results, but even with it, I seem to have to eyeball and scale one side at a time, because I don't know how to scale the candleholder from its center (is that possible?). Thanks for any insight!

Great bookcases! Those will be my next project.

About this:

"Of course it's a lot of work to open every component when your door consists of five or more of them."

Do you mean that if I wanted to edit such a door I'd have to open every component on it? Wouldn't I just have to open the component I want to alter?

Well, I want to rotate both together, opposite each other, like in the video. It appears I can only do that when one component is open for editing, correct?

Well, you guys are right (as if that were ever in doubt, lol). I double-clicked on a door, then held the Shift key down and selected all three of its surfaces (front, top and side). Then I rotated one, and the whole door rotated together. I had assumed that when I double-clicked on a component, all of its surfaces would be automatically selected. Thanks!

I did make the rectangle a component, I did it immediately, as in the video. Are you saying that when I double-click on a component to edit it, the whole component may not get necessarily get selected for editing? I assumed that the whole component would automatically be selected when I double-clicked to edit it.

Dave, thanks. However, about this:

"It sounds to me as if you're not selecting the entire door before rotating it."

Isn't a component automatically selected in its entirety when I click on it?

Adding to my post -I suppose I could just build one door, make it a component when completed, copy and flip. But I'm wondering why my door warps away from its thickness when I edit the thickness to it.

At 2.36, this guy makes an upright rectangle for a cabinet door, turns it into a component, adds thickness with push/pull, decorates the front, and then rotates both doors open.

When I try to replicate this,the doors warp when I rotate them. That is, the front warps away from the thickness even though I, too, made the rectangle a component and edited the thickness to it. To get the thickened doors to rotate properly, I have to enclose this component within a SECOND component that combines the rectangle door and its thickness. Which I don't see this guy doing. What am I doing wrong, or what step did he leave out? Thanks.

That click-n-drag thing works perfect! Thanks!

Sometimes when I use the rotate tool, it is near impossible for me to get the correct axis rotator to pop up. Two rotators will easily pop up, but one (usually the red) won't. This mostly happens when I'm trying to rotate planes. The only way I've found to solve it is to push/pull the plane into a form; then the red axis rotator shows up. But that requires me to then erase everything except the original plane. Is there a tip I'm missing to get all three rotators to show up for a plane? Or since the plane is flat, that's why I'm only getting two rotators? If the latter, doesn't seem right, because that doesn't always allow me to flip the plane in the direction I want.

Oh, and yes, I know I could just draw the rectangle along the axis I want, but that's not the point.