Annoying glitches with SketchUp on Mac

Technical Problems
1

I have seen the following glitches in all SketchUp versions 2022, 2023 and 2024.

To me, it looks like nobody really care about those. They are minor glitches but they don’t serve to show the full professionalism of SketchUp.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love this software. I have used it since more than 20 years and I am still using it and will be using it in the future.

It is simply that I think that Trimble is putting a lot of effort to increase the power of SketchUp by adding all kind of nice and useful tools and capabilities but, to give the best impression about this software, they should first correct all the small glitches that are still creating problems and that are present since quite some versions.

Here are some examples:

1 - Immediately after starting SketchUp, use the SketchUp Menu → About SketchUp. This gives the required info but it also pops open the Color palette and the Paint Bucket Tool is selected. This happens only once after a start.

2 - Immediately after starting SketchUp, use Window Menu → About the model → Statistics → Correct Problems. This gives the required info but it also pops open the Color palette and the Paint Bucket Tool is selected. This happens only once after a start.

I hope that these will be corrected for version 2025.

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2

I have this happen multiple times, not just once after a start. It’s been that way forever on Mac, and many of us have complained about it with no result. I have always suspected it some oversight in how they adapted the macOS color chooser to build the materials editor.

This and other persistent UI glitches led me to believe that the Mac programming part of the development team has been chronically understaffed. It seems the best hope at this point is that they will iron such things out when the port to Qt is completed, as I haven’t heard of SU doing this on Windows.

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Yeah, the material panel pops up with a couple other tools / menus too

Also, if I try to change the icons in my topbar and I have something fullscreen (a movie or a videocall) on my second screen, the movie gets hidden in order to show the finder. Even though I’m working in the other screen

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4

I’ve just tested your 2 examples, both an empty architectural metric template and with an existing complex model; in both instances I couldn’t reproduce the issues you mentioned - so it appears they’ve been corrected.

5

I think you meant to reply to @jean_lemire_1 not me.

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Open Keyboard Viewer to see if any spurious keys are getting hit? 2025 is out - see if you still get this.

b

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I still get the spurious paint bucket tool and color chooser opening on 2025.

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OK, I can repro now. And keyboard viewer open did NOT show a shortcut being typed. Thanks for pointing this out.

b

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9

yep, same. it’s been there for years.

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10

This is a known bug that has been a problem for years and one we can’t easily solve with out introducing other, worse issues.

You’ll likely see a new UI solve this before it’s directly fixed with this particular version of the materials panel. We’re working as fast as we can to release new features and updates across the board and the team and I are doing our best to see these long standing Mac bugs will get squashed!

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These are Mac specific. I see that you are on Windows 11.

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The topic is “Annoying glitches with SketchUp on Mac”

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Apologies - yes your’re right! Note to self - read the topic correctly!

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I can not express how happy this makes me. God speed sir!

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Good golly!!! Is this a roadmap admission? Or is it more like, “Hell will freeze over before you see that happen.” :).

Seriously, so very much love that you are in here at least encouraging us to be patient. It’s just the tinies of little things, but it sure helps. Im seeing some very interesting things in Layout 2025 that give me hope. Tool updates, while non-sexy, seem to indicate fixing base code in preparation for bigger things. You all play so coy at your roadmap…it…just…takes…so…long…to…see…it…come…to…pass.

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16

well we’ve known that the mac UI will switch to QT and a similar behaviour as the pc one since QT was rolled out on pc.

SU23.1 brought the new icons, who knows, new UI this summer ?

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17

Working as fast as we can! We will post when a testable version in our Private Labs when its available. We will may also extend an invite specifically to Mac users to join as want as many Mac users testing this as we can get to vet any new version. That said, if anyone was at Basecamp this year, and you joined our Labs feedback interviews, you might have already seen a preview :slight_smile:

More to come! We just needed to get everyone 2025.0 first!

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QT? On the PC? I guess im living on Mars. What is that?

I couldn’t be at Basecamp and none of the public video’s mentioned this UI update that Im aware of. Good golly again!! Am I about to be overly happy with Trimble?

PLEASE send me an invite!!! Please oh please send an invite.

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QT is a framework for software development.

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More precisely, Qt is a portable framework for GUI development.

Previously the Windows and Mac versions used those platforms’ proprietary GUI frameworks, leading to differences in how SketchUp looks and behaves on the two platforms and duplicated effort to maintain two code bases for the GUI. Getting both platforms onto Qt instead will eliminate this duplication and also the confusion caused by the GUI differences. The Windows port was done in 2023 and refined in 2024 and 2025. The Mac port has been a work in progress not yet released.

If you are a hard-core Mac fanatic, the change might annoy you as SketchUp may come to look more like a Windows app than macOS. But in the long run it should improve things.

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