I’ve been browsing other posts on the forum and viewing instructional videos, but no success so far. I’m trying to create a rectangle with the line drawing tool, and then change the dimensions using the box in the lower right hand corner. I enter the desired dimensions, and nothing happens. Sometimes I get an error saying “invalid length entered”, but more often than not I just get nothing. I’ve tried playing around with different syntax, but can’t find one that works.
L’ W’, entered just like that, extends the last line I drew, no idea why, and that’s the most I’ve been able to make it do.
Using sketchup for web, on chrome for mac. Any advice very much appreciated, thanks in advance.
EDIT: On playing around with it a little further, it seems like the dimensions box might only be corresponding to the last line I drew
SketchUp doesn’t work that way. If you want to change the dimensions after you’ve created the rectangle, select an edge and use the Move tool to move the desired distance or use the Scale tool to resize it.
If you know the dimensions of the rectangle before you draw it, it’s just easier to enter those as you draw the rectangle in the first place. Kind of silly to draw it the wrong size and go back to make it the right size afterward. That’s just too much work.
Pay attention to what is displayed in the Measurements box before you start to type. For a rectangle you will enter the dimensions separated by a comma if your localization uses a period as a decimal separator or a semicolon if the decimal separator is a comma.
Make sure you don’t click in the measurements window before typing anything into it. There is never any need to click in the Measurements window.
If I follow your second suggestion, how would I enter those as I draw the rectangle? You mean just drag to the desired length? That seems like it would needlessly risk a lot of ctrl-z-ing and agonizing over mouse movements, if I’m understanding right
Click and release to set the first corner, move the mouse in the general direction of the rectangle and let go of it. Type the dimensions separated by the correct separator and hit enter. When you drag out the rectangle pay attention to which dimension is the largest and type yours in the correct order.
In that video you can see he did exactly the same thing I said. He dragged out the rectangle, let go of the mouse and typed the dimensions he wanted. Notice in my GIF and his video the cursor stays in the model space and we just typed the dimensions.
I didn’t watch the whole thing but as far as drawing a rectangle, no, it’s not outdated. Watch it from the point you linked to. You can see he did exactly what I described.
