Hello,
For my studio classes, I had to sadly move from my beloved MacBook to a school-provided HP. While it is OK, my issue is that I cannot enter specific dimensions into “Length” box like on the Mac version. If anyone could help me with this, it’d be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
how do you do it on a mac book?
Are you clicking in the Measurements window before trying to enter the length? If so, don’t. There’s absolutely no reason to click in the Measurements window before typing the value, ever. Just start drawing a line or whatever, let go of the mouse and type.
Simply draw the line, shape, or guide, then press escape and click the “Length” box and type in the desired dimension.
I’m trying to afterwards.
Don’t press Esc either. There’s no reason to do that.
It won’t allow me to do so.
It won’t allow you to do what?
It won’t allow me to type in the dimension once I let go of the mouse.
now we’re getting somewhere
I want to see. Check your PMs.
Is the window too tall, so the bottom toolbar is hidden? I wonder if going full screen would help.
Once the object is drawn and finished, you can’t alter its length. You can only type in a measurement while you’re drawing, regardless of which version of SketchUp you’re using.
For example, if I want to draw a line that’s specifically 3’ long, I would use the line tool, click a starting point and before I click an end point, I would type 3’ and then hit enter. If I were to click the start and end of a line, the option to change its measurement is gone forever. That is correct behavior.
This problem was sorted yesterday. We had a brief chat and straightened things out. The OP was clicking in the Measurements window before attempting to type the dimensions. His process has been fixed and he should be modeling away.
Not exactly. As long as no other tool is activated you can continue to alter the size of the last object indefinitely. Click to start a rectangle, click to finish the rectangle. Type rectangle dimensions and press return. Type new dimensions and press return as long as you like. Once you change tools the size is set and the measurements are not immediately editable.
That isn’t true. You can select a line and change its length in the entity info dialogue in some cases.
Could SketchUp please go back to calling this the VCB (value control box)? It would be much less confusing for newer users.
It’s still referred to as the VCB in help files. It’s always shown the label ‘Measurements’ when a tool isn’t asking for a specific type of value, though. that seems more obvious than VCB.
Thanks Dave, I’ve been out of town so this is late. A trivial issue anyway. Thanks for your response.
I’ve searched on this topic and keep seeing comments about there is no reason why anyone would need to type in the dimensions in the VCB.
However, there are some instances where I would like to type only one of the dimensions in the VCB. Either the X or the Y and keep the other. I had a mac at work and was able to do this but I’m only working on my Windows 10 PC now and can’t type in the VCB. It seems that I used to be able to do this on a PC at some point as well - and maybe an OS update changed that.
My workflow goes something like this: Draw a rectangle with a set X or Y measurement (say between guides or connected to other objects that have some a set size and location - then I want to pull the other dimension to be set to a precise dimension, say fractional - I can’t pull it exactly to something like 36’-7-3/8" and I can’t type both numbers because I don’t necessarily know the dimension for the one I’m drawing from. I used to be able to highlight just one of the dimensions in the VCB - after drawing the rectangle - and highlighting and changing just that dimension while keeping the other. Now I have to pull the rectangle, look at the dimensions and memorize (or write down!) the set dimension and type in both.
I do this frequently enough where it’s really annoying and I’d like to be able to click in the VCB and change one or both of the dimensions.