Well, I guess will have to agree to disagree, because it makes perfect sense to me. I have to recall something I mentioned in another thread. I, and another individual, were IBM business partners, helping them with their architectural design program. When we came on board, the program was ridiculous in the extreme. For example, it took 7 steps to draw a line from point A to point B. There reasoning was that there program was a “comprehensive toolbox” that enabled a user to do anything. Our response was, “we just want to do it … and we want to do it now.” They took our suggestions to heart, and the result was the easiest 3D CAD program that existed at the time. It blew Autocad out of the water, when it came to ease of use.
So maybe you could make a detailed explanation why, making line entities visible when edge display is turned off, makes no sense.
It makes no sense because what you are calling “line entities” ARE edges. So you are saying you want to see edges when you set the style to not display edges.
Because there are no line entities. They are non-existent. Never there.
This is a matter of what the concept of a line entity is. There is nothing unreasonable about having an option for displaying lines, when edge display is turned off, to make working with a model more efficient. Try snaping to endpoints with edge display turned off. It’s a little difficult snaping to something that isn’t there.
Regardless of concepts, there is no line feature in SketchUp. I am very skeptical about seeing the developers add something that looks like an edge but cannot be used in modelling to the feature set.
What already can be done is to hide the edges you don’t want to see.
For one person.
What I’m talking about is adding an option to have drawn lines visible when edge display is turned off, or at least recognize endpoints, midpoints, etc. when edge display is turned off. The best way for this to work would be to have the line appear only when you select it is some way.
It doesn’t seem to be getting through that what you are calling lines are edges in SketchUp.
There is no difference between “drawn lines” and edges, unless a new entity type would be created. They are the same.
It got through even before you brought it up. I’m simply talking about an enhancement to the concept of how, and when edges are displayed. What I’ve suggested is certainly possible. The question is: is it desirable? I suppose it depends on who’s being asked.
If you turn off the edges by Style you get the similar effect when you are hide the edges indidually. Not visible, then no inference.
If I understood correctly, you still want to get this inference if you are “hovering around” even they are not visible.
It can be good, but maybe not. I’m also not sure if it require a coding enhancement, however as an Idea or request okay. Perhaps, developers might want to think about it. I can’t really judge it more …
There are other workflows here to see what you want to see… ( like using groups and/or components, associating tags (layers) and creating different scenes according desired visibilities…)
One thing that I can suggest now here, to get some “similar” effect that you wish:
If you turn off the edges, but keep profiles on a Stlye only a boundary edges will be visible (and that ones without faces) , but you still get an inference of end-mid points of edges.
You can also “play” with the color and width of edges there, to “reduce the visibilities” of above mentioned boundaries.
Very good suggestions. My problem with having Profiles turned on is that it’s a just a lesser problem than having Edges turned on. With some models you wind up with a lot of junk littering you model. My wife is an interior designer, and looking at upholstered furniture with multi-patterned fabric, while having Edges and Profiles turned on, is quite a mess. One of the things I’ve learned about Sketchup is the multitude of features that make so many things possible. But anything that can simplify your work is a good thing in my opinion. What I find interesting is that, before I got into Sketchup, I saw a video of someone working on a model in Sketchup where end points and intersections would appear when the cursor got in the vicinity. It was as though the X-Ray view was temporarily turned on. I wish I could find that video, or discover how to do it in Sketchup now.
Create an other scenes for your wife and work on your work scene : 
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When you are in move tool and selecting the object it is automatically turn to Xray… but even it is not it is very easy to turn on/of yourself:
What a long discussion! I had noticed too that not showing edges also means giving up on inferencing. That seems wrong to me, and I’ve been meaning to bring up the issue. There should be a style setting to hide edges, which would mean they are still there for inferencing, but you don’t see them.
BTW, an easy solution is to have a scene that shows edges and another one that doesn’t. Then you can export nice looking images, and still go to the scene with edges to do modeling.
This is turning out to be a very interesting discussion. I’ve been playing around with dezmo’s comments on the move tool, and discovered what I should have noticed a long time ago. Contrary to earlier comments about entities not existing when not visible, desmo was right on the money. All the OSNAP points do appear when Edges and Profiles are turned off. The model appears to be a solid, but when you hover over on OSNAP point, it shows up. So here’s the million dollar question: If the endpoint of line entity can temporarily appear, why not the entire line?
You are talking AutoCad. Yecch.
Turning layers off doesn’t stop entities on them from creating inference points or interacting with visible things in your model.
It is there, just not visible!
You can’t select something that’s not visible in SketchUp. Making things invisible by hiding, tags or style setting is very handy when you want to select a specific set of edges and/or faces that are not easy to reach otherwise…
What I’m suggesting would be something like having an tool icon that, when activated, made hidden entities visible. It would be like turning on Edges, Profiles, and X-Ray view all at the same time. What do you find so inconceivable about that? Executing multiple features with one click is not a novel concept in the world of software development.
Sure not a novel concept. SketchUp have this abilities.
You can use the existing or create your own styles and use it with one button click, or combine it with Scenes as I mentioned above…:
I use scenes extensively in a number of projects. I realize all I want, I can do within Sketchup. But sometimes I’m working on something very simple, and I don’t want to bother with scenes, many tabs, and whatever. I’m just imaging a simple enhancement that will do it all at once with the click of a button. The fewer clicks, the faster and more efficiently I can work. Maybe it’s already there. It’s just a matter of grouping commands, like macros in a spreadsheet. With a spreadsheet macro I can execute ten minutes of work instantaneously by pressing two keys at the same time. As I said, maybe that capability is here now in Sketchup, and someone will educate me.