Hi Sketchup team.
UPDATE - I have changed the list to reflect Paul’s post below.
He pointed out a few things I didn’t know.
I am a New Zealand Registered Architect who has been working as sole practitioner for the last few years. I come from a construction and technical background, and I have a lot of experience in documenting buildings in AutoCAD and Revit.
For the last few years, I have been completing my entire architectural process in Sketchup producing the types of documentation shown here.
These drawings are a mix of native Sketchup and layout tools and free and paid plugins.
I have come to love using Sketchup for this process as it allows the freedom to create drawing systems that combine the best parts of 3D and 2D documentation.
That said, there are a few things that would make the process of documentation much more seamless.
The following is a list of Bugs and changes I would like to see implemented in future updates.
These have all been found in Windows 11 and Sketchup Layout 2023.
LAYOUT.
SYSTEM.
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BUG. Printing from layout to a physical printer has been buggy for a long time. Every layout / windows update seems to break it again and it is worse in Windows 11. The page setup size does not change the printer page size. The page size must be reselected in the printer settings every time. The print preview seems to shift the centre point of the image and the image is printed as shown in the preview. The images shown below illustrate the point. However if I chose print to PDF the print preview is correct and the PDF print is correct. All other programs, Adobe, MS Office etc, print fine on the same printer.
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BUG. The Edit > Preferences > Folders window does not allow for adding additional folders. Refer to this thread here: Windows 11 Layout Default Folder Bug - #11 by benoldays
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BUG. File > Page setup needs to be saved to the template / file loaded. The number of wasted printing resources is way too high from this.
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CHANGE. Global export to PDF. I would like to option to export all open tabs to a single PDF.
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CHANGE. Layout backup file names need to change to make sorting easier. Changing the backup file type or being able to specify the backup naming prefix would fix the problem.
REFERENCES.
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BUG. Cannot drag and drop images into open groups. The image is placed outside of the group. It would be good if the image was placed inside the open group.
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CHANGE. Make File > Document Setup > References a selectable dialogue box that can be placed in a Tray. I often need to update multiple references it would be easier to have this dialogue as a dockable tray. The dialogue should have the update, purge, link, etc. Adding the ability to add a “Update References” button to the tool bar would half solve this issue.
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CHANGE. Some form of referencing system between components, groups, viewports etc. This would be useful for referencing between plans and sections and details. So, if the detail number changed the references would update.
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CHANGE. Reset element size. Eg, insert a linked image > drag to scale image size > right click > Reset to original size.
USER INTERFACE.
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CHANGE. The pattern fill tray dialogue needs back and forward folder navigation buttons. I think the Sketchup Materials dialogue is the ideal layout.
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CHANGE. Ability to change the colour of the selection box and centre point. The blue of selection and the blue of the centre point are very similar. This makes it difficult to fine the centre point in large groups of selections.
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CHANGE. Add the ability to toggle between copy/paste in place and copy/paste at curser.
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CHANGE. The selection box needs to adjust with zoom level. The distance an object can be selected via mouse click is too great. The point of the mouse curser should be closer to an object in order to select that object.
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CHANGE. Ability to toggle layout object line weights off or on. When off all line weights are reduced to a minimum thickness.
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CHANGE. The ability to lock the custom colour pallet in the colour dialogue tray. It is too easy to accidentally change them.
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CHANGE. Ability to transfer workspace to new version of Sketchup / Layout, including all the trays, dialogue default settings, fonts, colours etc.
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CHANGE. Ability to hide objects / groups temporarily. Similar to the hide / unhide function in Sketchup.
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CHANGE.
At the moment copied geometry is pasted to the same layer. It would be useful to be able to paste to the selected layer.UPDATE This can be achieved via the Paste to current layer function or Ctrl+Shift+V -
CHANGE. Ability to set a Sketchup viewport to “greyscale” within Layout. To achieve this currently I have to use a fog layer in a Sketchup Scene. Due to the limitations of the fog setting it is difficult to get multiple scenes to have the same greyscale look.
SCRAPBOOK.
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CHANGE Can’t insert a scaled drawing from the scrap book into a scaled drawing on the sheet. This is even the case when the scales of both are the same. This needs to be fixed as my details are pieced together from multiple scaled groups selected out of scrap book. We know this shouldn’t be a problem because I can copy and paste the same scaled drawing into another scaled drawing without issue. This is what should happen when selecting from the scrapbook.
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CHANGE The ability to mouse wheel zoom when curser is over the scrapbook panel.
SNAP SYSTEM.
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CHANGE. Dragging a selection with the goal to snap the centre / rotation node, of the selection to another point requires the centre node to be moved. Which means it is no longer in the centre. There needs to be some way to cycle through the primary inference point. This is something that Revit does well with the TAB key.
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CHANGE. When “Hide rest of document” is activated the inference snap points of all hidden geometry should be disabled. This might help with the performance issues when trying to drag objects over complex models as the inference engine tries to calculate everything. Only calculating snaping to objects on screen controlled by zooming in or out?
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CHANGE. It would be good to have the option to disable snaping to anything in the Sketchup Viewport while maintaining snapping to the layout geometry.
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CHANGE
Ability to infer snap to extension to existing line when drawing new lines.UPDATE The angled line inference system seems to be working better than I remember when I noted this issue. -
CHANGE Ability to simultaneously drag and drop the snap point for multiple selected dimensions connected to the same geometry.
TEXT.
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BUG. There is a text alignment bug for vertical text in text box, label and dimensions. The following image is the same text boxes on the left, the centre, and the right of an A1 sized piece of paper. Notice how the horizontal text position changes relative to the position.
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BUG. There is a text label bug. Double click the label group and flip the text box. Now drag the text box around the leader position will go a bit wild. Now this isn’t a major bug, but it is one I have found.
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BUG. Sometime if a label becomes disconnected from the Sketchup Model the length of the first segment of the leader line will reset. This is a difficult one to replicate but leads to printing errors that are difficult to pick up.
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BUG. The dimension text hides the dimension lines when the dimension is narrow despite the fill setting being off. This creates a floating line situation it would be better if the lines were shown by default, or the setting could be changed.
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BUG. When resizing a label text box that has been sized to fit will reset the text box vertical dimension.
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BUG. When resizing a text box with shrink to fit the scale/bounding box does not update until the text box is moved, copied etc.
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BUG. The layout of text within a text box will change upon editing. This is more annoying than anything but can be an issue when text layout is important.
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BUG. The distance between the list value (bullet point, Number etc) and the start of the text is not adjusted for text size. So, the smaller the text the further away from the bullet point it becomes. This makes it unusable for most font sizes.
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CHANGE. If a file has a non-present font there should be an opportunity to globally replace all instances of that missing font.
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CHANGE. Text right click size to fit would be nice to have the option to size the text box in the horizontal direction as well as the vertical. It would also be useful to have an option to make a text box automatically shrink to fit in both dimensions.
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CHANGE. Ability to set a default and fixed length of the first segment of a leader line so that the length does not change on dragging the text box.
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CHANGE. The ability to curate the font list. Mabe a favourites type system would work.
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CHANGE. When flipping labels don’t flip font. Fonts should be immune from flipping within the text box.
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CHANGE. Built in spellcheck would be good or better integration with the windows one. E.g Currently the windows spell check dos does not check words in uppercase.
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CHANGE. Ability to change the autotext on all open tabs/files simultaneously.
DRAWING.
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BUG. There is a bug where holding shift while dragging a the point of a line in a direction, and then inputting the distance, will reset the position of the point. Now this does work correctly if you do not hold shift, however the shift key locks the direction in most programs, so it is a difficult habit to break.
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BUG. The accuracy of specified lines is always off. I.e, a 50mm line is actually 49.9999 etc. This isn’t a huge problem, and I know it’s probably unfixable, but it can have its issues when accuracy is important, particularly with angles.
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CHANGE. Ability to offset a freehand line and retain the same “spline” editing features rather than creating an offset shape consisting of connected lines.
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CHANGE. The scale/bounding box of a rotated group/object should remain aligned with the geometry. Consider the different behaviour of two squares, one created with the square tool and one created from four lines drawn in sequence. When rotated the scale/bounding box behaves differently. This difference makes post rotation editing difficult in some situations. A toggle would work well here.
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CHANGE. Better ability to adjust the position of pattern fill. Ideally this system would allow patterns to be dragged around.
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CHANGE. Being able to drag the corner grips of a shape made with the square tool to distort as any other geometry.
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CHANGE. It would be useful to be able to change the colour, line weight, and dash properties to individual lines of a shape. For example a square with a pattern fill where the top and right lines have been made white while the left and bottom lines are black. To do this at the moment you have to make three shapes.
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CHANGE. 2D Components are needed. Functionality similar to Sketchup Components.
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CHANGE. Ability to create custom line dashes and arrows/ line ends.
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CHANGE. The ability to create an infinite dashed guideline similar to the Sketchup Guidelines. Line is created by dragging off an existing line. Delete all / hide all guides functions.
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CHANGE. Add a function where default properties can be assigned to a tool button. I.e the dimension tool will automatically select the Dimension Layer. Deselecting the dimension tool will reselect the previous layer.
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CHANGE.
Ability to add points to lines/shapes without having to knife and glue them.UPDATE It turns out this is possible by holding alt and clicking on an editable shape. -
CHANGE. Ability to select multiple lines and have all lines glue together where ends meet.
SKETCHUP.
UI.
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CHANGE. Sketchup Templates don’t remember the “in model” styles/material default selection. I would like to open a template and have the drop-down selection default to In Model.
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CHANGE. Why are the tray dialogue box layouts always different. I.e why are the Materials and Component boxes different? The navigation buttons and drop-down list are in different locations. This layout should be standard across all dialogue boxes across both software.
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CHANGE. Fog control dialogue box needs the ability to input the number values like in the shadow box. It would also be useful to have the values show distance from camera.
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CHANGE. Ability to cycle through nested groups / components with the “Hide rest of Model” function. i.e for a series of nested groups, open inner most group. Push “Hide rest of model” button once = Hide rest of model. Push twice = Hide rest of model except the next outer group. Push three times = hide rest of model except the next two outer groups.
DRAWING.
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BUG. Creating a guide from another guide within an off-axis group will create a guide on a different axis. Not crucial just annoying.
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CHANGE. Native Skalp functionality built into the tag system. Add ability to assign Section Line width and Section Fill material to tag system. This is a requirement if Trimble wants to be taken seriously as a documentation tool in the architecture field.
TEXTURES.
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CHANGE. At the moment when editing a group all textures outside of this group are not visible. The ability to toggle on/off the visibility of textures outside of groups would be good.
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CHANGE. When repositioning textures being able to lock the motion of a texture to an axis using the arrow keys would be useful.
Thats pretty much it.
Would be great if one of the devs would check into a few of these and add them to some sort of list.
Thanks.
