Sometimes I am creating an object and I forget to first switch the tag assigned as “active”. After creating the object I will go and re-tag it. When I then go to make a tag not visible, even though the objects are no longer using that tag (the original one), they still become invisible. Is there a way to “clear” the old tag. Its a terrible workflow and sometimes I have to re-create the object and delete the old one.
I the screenshots provided, my objects in the Cherry Cut List were accidentally created when the “Side” tag was active. I DID change the tag on these to “Cherry-Cut-List” layer but when I make the tag “Sides” not visible, the "Cherry objects still disappear
Please advise if this is a bug or if there is a way to delete the “Sides” tag on these objects.
I expect incorrect tag usage is to blame. ALL edges and faces should be created AND remain untagged. Only groups and components should be getting tags.
What has probably happened is that you have created your edges and faces with some other tag than “Untagged” active. Then you have made them into groups or components and given them some other tag. This doesn’t change the tags of the edges and faces inside.
Never change the active tag from “Untagged”. Give tags only to groups or components.
Are you saying then that I must keep the “Untagged” as active most of the time. I always create an object, then make the edges as a Group, then I try and move the tag.
Its a poor user experience that you need to keep going back to “untagged” every time you create a new object.
You should be leaving Untagged as active at ALL times. ALL geometry (edges and faces) remains untagged at all times. Only groups and component get the tags.
The poor user experience is due to incorrect workflow. There’s no reason to change the active tag at all if you are following the right workflow in the first place. There’s no need to be chasing the active tag.
If you dont want the edges visible, use the hide command. If you make a group from the edges of an object, you will actually copy them into a new group. You now have a double set of edges … The edges you think you isolated by this is still there. As the others say, all raw geometry is supposed to be untagged. That means that you always have Untagged set as the active tag, and never change that. When the group is made and selected you change the tag for it using the Info palette Tag drop-down menu or the Tag tool.
If you opt to delete all of the tags you will be prompted to give Untagged to everything. Do that. Then create the tags you need and give those tags to the objects (groups and components) in the model. Leave all of the geometry within the objects untagged and leave that pencil icon at Untagged.
Frankly, if you sent the model to me the first thing I would do is run TIG’s Default Tag Geometry (from Sketchucation) which would go through the entire model and untag the geometry. Then I’d give it back to you to assign the tags to the groups and components.
FWIW, if you leave Untagged active at all time you won’t need to even know what tag you’ve assigned to an object when you edit it. The tag won’t matter at all during editing. again, there’s never any reason to chase tags at all. You should have a much better user experience that way.
I’m a woodworker as a hobbyist, by trade I am a Program Manager and run teams of UX designers and programmers for large software applications. There should be a HUGE warning anytime a user moves the active tag from “untagged” it appears that there is no reason to ever do that.
IMO this is a big #fail, but thanks to everyone brining that to my attention. I have watched many tutorials and this is never brought up.
They did move the pencil icon way over to the right so it is usually not visible or easy to change.
The Help files do go over this thing of leaving Untagged active all the time.
And there are a few use cases in which changing the active tag makes sense but for the majority of users, leaving Untagged active is the best workflow.
My primary use for SketchUp is woodworking, too. As I wrote, it’s much easier to go by the “rules” and not chase tags.
Used correctly it can be quite handy. I use it regularly to add dimension to a Dimension Tag and often set a Tag active to insert multiple components from my local collection. For example populating a floor plan with furniture, the raw geometry remains untagged but the components are assigned the the Furniture Tag all in one go.
So, yes, it has its uses, but we have long asked for it to be more obvious because many beginners fall foul of it.
A number of users admonish to always leave Untagged as the ‘active’ tag - but as I understand it, one of the primary purposes of the tags feature is to be able to visually ‘turn off’ parts of the model. And the only way I know to do that is by hitting the little eyeball icon to the left of a tag. So if one ALWAYS leaves the Untagged geometry as active, one can not make use of the functionality. Obvs this can not be the case… And if one DOES hit the eyeball icon to the left of a particular tag (to visually turn it off in the model), one then has to remember to again set the Untagged as ‘active’ before creating new geometry (in order to avoid problems). I’m struggling to reconcile this (apparent) contradiction. Thanks to the help being posted here - I am currently working on a more complex model than anything I’ve done before (a house I’m going to build!), and am trying to figure out the best workflows for using the ‘eyeball’ icons in tags vs those same icons in outliner. Thanks!
Tags work best if you leave all edges and faces Untagged and assign tags only to groups or components. Untagged geometry follows the tag of the parent element.
The edges you think you isolated by this is still there. As the others say, all raw geometry is supposed to be untagged. That means that you always have Untagged set as the active tag, and never change that. When the group is made and selected you change the tag for it using the Info palette Tag drop-down menu or the Tag tool.