Wow, thanks for the great feedback, meaker! Really useful comments!
@meaker vi said:
A way to submit assemblies & profiles to someone would be nice. You say they can be found on the 3d warehouse, but I'm not sure how to find them other than using yours from your site.
Assemblies and profiles are just SKP files. You can share them and upload them to 3DWH just like any other SKP file. If you have uploaded an assembly, let me know and I'll post it on my website.
@unknownuser said:
No way to apply materials to a profile from within the assembly editor
Just click on the profile icon in the Assembler Dialog (just next to the Profile name) and you can edit all the properties of the profile, including material
@unknownuser said:
No way to orient materials applied to profiles other than to create new materials (not ideal)
True - not ideal
@unknownuser said:
Some of the labels have obscure meanings. (Up/down offset is just elevation by another name?)
Up/down offset refers to the 'local up direction'. This is not the same as elevation if the path is sloped up or down. I had hoped that the hover thumbnails clarified this...
@unknownuser said:
The profile/assembly search windows do not show folders (makes it tedious to organize profiles & assemblies by a type logical to me, and I'd prefer not to sort through thousands of profiles/assemblies every time I want to find one), and could use some extra navigation features (forward/back arrow).
Yes - this is something I plan to improve in the next update
@unknownuser said:
The 'search' icon should probably be an 'open' icon
..probably
@unknownuser said:
The way the preview is generated is obscure to me. Sometimes it focuses on what I'm editing, sometimes not, sometimes it just doesn't do what I want it to and I don't know why.
The preview is actually a thumbnail that is created by SketchUp of the Assembly Component. It works most of the time but sometimes it does weird things and I am not sure why. Helpful hint: the orientation of the preview camera will match the current SketchUp camera view
@unknownuser said:
The "apply assembly attributes" and "edit member properties" buttons have the same iconography, but do slightly different things. Personally, I'm not sure the little popup window for profiles is useful, maybe replace it with a "apply profile attributes" (exactly the same as the assembly button) and add a button that brings the window back up as a kind of eyedropper tool allowing the user to select what profile (or maybe assembly!) attributes to eyedrop.
Interesting...Perhaps some improvements could be made here.
@unknownuser said:
I'd be nice to be able to adjust the profiles used from within the assembly dialogue. Especially for their start points, rotation, etc.
See above - this can already be done.
@unknownuser said:
Hitting enter on data entry in any box doesn't do anything. You need to switch to the next box to get the data to apply. - Especially important when building assemblies, as it's tricky to figure out whether I've moved something the correct distance.
Yes - this should be improved, Enter should apply the current setting.
@unknownuser said:
Pushing the arrows on the profile in the assembly window on a loaded assembly allows you to go infinitely beyond the number of profiles in the assembly. I think it happens when you've selected a profile that exists in one assembly, load a new assembly with fewer profiles, and then try to cycle through them.
Right - there are some issues here that need to be fixed.
@unknownuser said:
It seems like this is so close to being able to do all things parametric. If it worked in 2 dimensions (instead of just linearly), I can see using it to generate any-height walls, windows, doors, etc. etc. (Right now, I'd need to make a new assembly for each window/door height. Not the end of the world, but more work than I'd like to do).
Making it so the tool can cut assemblies (possibly using solid tools) would make windows & doors very easy.
Allowing me to draw a thing using profiles and components and translate them to an assembly would be awesome.
Great suggestions, thanks! If you think of any more, please let me know.