I've seen many great ....good ... minor feature requests here in different threads.
One that I can't recall having seen is: Allow two (maybe more, but at least two) active section planes per modeling level. In other words: **each group, each component and the top level of geometry can have two active section planes.**Maybe some sort of 'Section Plane Outliner' to better handle all section planes in a model.
A very interesting request is the one Christina Eneroth (Eneroth3) posted in SketchUp Help Forum https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/sketchup/feature-suggestions/IbflqJjevk0
This would make my request here entirely superfluous. If only this were possible and implemented, handling section cuts would be much more advanced.

Thank you Dale for the great protest song. Good to cheer you up and see/hear that there's a lot of protest against companies like More$anto.

@dale said:

This is the kind of thing that is of concern.
U.S. investigating rogue GM wheat found in Oregon field
Monsanto abandoned work on strain more than a decade ago

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/06/05/science-gm-wheat-oregon.html

What is your concern? The invertigation? Japan's reaction to restrict import of wheat?
Or maybe this:
@unknownuser said:

(comment quote from the article)"It's actually a horror story in the making. What if some genetic material from cannabis was added to the wheat? You'd eat a pizza made with flour from this wheat, and you'd get hungry, so you'd eat more pizza which would make you even hungrier. It would be a never ending hunger. I can imagine pizza zombies roaming the streets, ravenously seeking more pizza..

or?.....
The protests around the world agains Monsanto at least had some positive effect in Europe.

I think it's madness to honour GM plants with any patent. The plant is doing 99.999999999% of the work to reproduce itself.

@ilovesu said:

P.s: Is there still a version of SketchUp 8 Pro around? There was a page on sketchup.com which listed some older versions of SketchUp but there were no actual download links. I'm using v8 Free now.

Hi Coen, you might try here:
http://support.google.com/sketchup/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=115548
(Hope it still works)

+1,,,,,, to complain about an ‘incomplete quote’-complain about a ‘complain of one grumpy user about not reading TFM about the before posting, %(#0000FF)[thereby leaving out important thread stuff], thereby misinform other users that may be equally pissed off about the speedy release of a new .

@dave r said:

You could restate that as the arc tool will give you an indication of tangent to an edge IF the arc end point is on an edge.

Or if there's no other geometry connected to that paticular endpoint, the start of the arc.
Meaning that your workaround could be: temporarily delete the short edge > create tangent arc > redraw short edge.

@dan rathbun said:

New for SU 2013... the SelectionTool is now the default tool, by popular demand.
Let's hope this is a final decision.
You preferably enter a room (workspace) with a toolbox full of tools, to see what needs to be done, not with some tool in your hands.

@chris fullmer said:

Hi Gerrit, double clicking on the left side ......

Thank you Chris. Once the toolbar showed up (top left underneath first current toolbar) I had no problem to (double)click > pull it > dock it at my favorite location below the modeling area. My problem was to find it. Once you know...., well, not likely that I'll ask this question again.
Thank you and I hope you can find how to overcome the 'hide and seek'-toolbar bug.

Thank you Dave, I was prepairing to send you a screenshot with all (..... but one) toolbars floating on drawing area +'Toolbars' window open. And there it was, hiding underneath the very last one, the 'b_stard'.
I hope this isn't going to be a standard procedure with other toolbars.

Through 'Extention warehouse' I installed 'Solar North'.
And SU2013Pro says that from now on it's available. I can even see that it's checked in the list of all the toolbars available.
But there's no such toolbar for me on Window XP.
I've just read that Geo is having similar issues with this extention.

@hellnbak said:

.......... But, what I'm looking for is an explanation of why it happens, and how to make it not happen anymore.
......

Hi, attached file / model may somehow explain what is going on when creating similar weird faces.
There are certain "conditions" that have to be met to create them. Don't ask me why SketchUp can't handle them. It probably has to do with the order of creating loops and the sequence of edges and their endpoints that confuses the program to decide which faces have to be created and where to split them. The model shows two situations that you better avoid when modelling. Although dragging endpoints accross an opposite edge isn't the most likely operation.
Often "intersect faces with....." doesn't help. And you can keep on adding edges, only shifting the profiles to some other little face. Delete the corrupt part and/or re-create it with a workaround (like in the second scene)
I hope this somehow helps in understanding when and why this issue occures.

weird faces

You: hi
Stranger: hi
You: name?
Stranger: chun wu, at your service
You: alexander goldberg
Stranger: sup
You: u kno… i never forgave u koreans for attacking pearl harbour
Stranger: uhh?... im chinese… and that was the japanese who attacked it
You: chinese, japanese, korean … whats the difference
Stranger: …….
Stranger: u serious?
You: yeah
Stranger: ……
Stranger: u kno i never forgave u jews for sinking the titanic
You: that was an icegerg
Stranger: goldberg, greenberg, iceberg. whats the difference!

@enhydra said:

I am trying to create a model environment for kids (they are between 9 and 11 years old). It should work like building with bricks (e.g. TinkerCad).
AFAIK it works as long as the kids do not modify the components. If they only place them on the workplane and scale them, everything is OK. Is there a way that they get always groups?
..

You could build components, simple blocks, say length A, 2xA, 3xA and 5xA (just as an example).
These components are in the 'In Model' library.
Place each component in modeling space and assign layer 1 to them.
Group them together and assign layer 2 to them.
Now enter the group, select all components and lock them
Leave the groups environment and lock the group.
Hide both layer 1 and layer 2.

The modeling space seems empty but holds all components locked two levels deep.
Even the 'Outliner' does not show the components on hidden layers.
(If they are smart, the kids will eventually find them!)

Your kids can apply each component from the 'In Model' library. They can even scale them etc.
But each time the try to enter them for editing, they will get a warning. Making them curious. But unless they find them (hide them even more levels deep if you want)they cannot edit the components.
It's worth a try.

Both the 'Scene Transition' time and the 'Scene Delay' time are for the entire model and throughout the complete animation of all scenes that are included.

If you set delay to zero, then you can play with extra camera locations on the path, to simulate slower transition between scenes.
Say going from A > B > C > you could add scenes B1 B2 B3 on path B > C to slow down on this traject. Resulting in A > B > B1 > B2 > B3 > C > D.

However, if you do need some delay, this isn't such a goog idea. B1, B2 and B3 will also have that delay.

If you do nor care so much about transition bu want different delays, do so with extra scenes with the same camera position. Consider the set time as the minimum.
So the animation runs like A > B > B1 > B2 > C > D > D1 > D2 > D3 > D4 where B1 and B2 are copies of B. So are D1, D2 D3 and D4 copied scenes of D. B seems to delay 3x and D seems to delay 5x.

You can't benefith from both solutions (different transitions AND different delay) in the same animation at the same time.

(edit) If you set delay to zero, you can still get variable delay time by adding extra scenes with the same camera location on the path. Trasition time betwee equal scenes more or less acts as the delay time for a certain scene.

@thomthom said:

Gerrit, you mean like my Vertex Tools? Where it offers a set of Move, Rotate and Scale tools for vertex editing? .......

Thank you Thomas. No, I meant the most basic thing where, once a plugin is loaded at startup of SketchUp, the plugin is right available in the menu where you let it appear.
And at the same time the plugin can (from thereof) also be reached if you assign a shortcut key to it.
I wasn't sure whether "placing in the list" was done automaticaly or if you need to have some extra code in the plugin for the list.

Example: I place plugin "AAA" in the folder. Looking at the code I see that "AAA" will show up in menu say "Draw". Looking at the shortcut list I can see that I can assign its use to a key.

In my case I don't want to use my plugin through any menu but (say lazy as I am) by hitting a key. As it seems SU handles most of that for me. As long as I let it appear in a menu and than find it in the list of shortcuts for assigning it.

Thank you Aerilius, for confirming TIG's answer.
The idea I have (and have had for a long time) is simple and takes all you writers about two minutes to write. I just want to put this together myself, as simple as the idea is. Otherwise I'll never learn.

@tig said:

.....BUT you should never force a shortcut-key on a user as it can mess up their own personalized setup.

Thank you TIG. By no means I'm not trying to force anything upon anyone. (hell breaks loose if I do)
But I have seen where some code "directs" the availability of a plugin to one menu or the other. I think I can do so too. (first for myself, and if useful, for others to use).
But my question is: does that plugin then automatically also appear in the shortcut list, to assign a key to it? (user's choise!) Of course with the appopriate preselection in SU's geometry, if needed. I guess your answer to this was 'Yes', from your quote below. Right?

@tig said:

....IF a tool has a 'menu entry' [either a native-tool OR one made by a 3rd-party plugin] then it will be available for you to add a shortcut key manually - Preferences > Shortcuts > Filter [to find it by name]... assign key-combo...

@unknownuser said:

....Something tells me is not possible but I hope I am wrong!

Many (if not all) plugins appear in the shortcut list. So it is possible.
Select something and then open the list (menu Window > Preferences > Shortcuts > see under 'Plugins'..... (select one and assign))

I just need to know whether to search for extra code or not.

@mics_54 said:

..... selecting the bounding edges in a push/pull operation?

Push/Pull is an operation on faces. Or better said, on a single face. Don't include any edges at all. If you select a face plus an edge not being part of it's circumference, that the tool's face pre_selection is turned off for that face. Meaning that it again selects what face you are hovering over.
Circumference_edges though may be included in the pre_selection of a face.

(trying ruby again.....)
At the end of a SU plugin you can specify in which menu a plugin should show up.
Is this code enough to also let it show up the 'Shortcut' list, ... to then assign a key to it?

@frascati said:

...........using the axis tool. None instruct on how to use the tool to reorient two or more groups or components to the same xyz. Is this possible without a plugin?
......
I simply want to reset the xyz coordinates of groupA to correspond to the xyz coordinates of groupB, so that when I drag and attach groupA to groupB they fit symmetrically.

Problem is that your question wasn't clear to begin with. But do NOT use my previously quoted answer (in red) for something it wasn't meant for. That question was more focused on translations rather than rotations.

I thought that you wanted the components aligned by their local axes to just one axes system (say =current drawing axes). That was my answer above. You simply align the bounding boxes of the components to the drawing axes. Not what you are after, my bad.

The way I read your question is that you have two (or more) groups or components that you want to assemble by the geometry they each contain.
The local ases do not matter! %(#008000)[You should set up their axes properly at the time you create them or change their axes prior to using these components. Once you are satisfied with the logical setup of the axes, you should not just change them again and again.
For then you might make a mess of previouly used same instances of these components.]
The bounding box is just a box in which the geometry is kept separate from other geometry.
Give us an example *.skp file with two groups or components that you use and that you want to fit together. Any two. That's better than monkeying around for two months.
I'll try (or someone else) to explain step by step how to fit them together.

p.s. (you could delete your previous post if you wish)