Controlling List Ordering for Component Dialog Box

[jarvis393]

Is there a way to control how the various components are arranged in the COMPONENTS ATTRIBUTES dialog box?

I have a single CABINET component that consists of seven sub-components.
The way the various components are sequenced in the dialog box makes absolutely no sense at all.

The order of listing is completely random.
The sub-components are not listed alphabetically.
They are not listed in the order they were created.
There seems to be no correlation with how they are composed on the screen.

When developing formulas to create attributes I have to constantly scroll through the list to find the other sub-component I need to reference.

Is there a way for me to be in charge of the order they are displayed in?

[pcmoor]

You can order them via Outliner, by dragging a sub_component outside its parent, release, then drag back in again. It will place that sub on the end of the attribute dialog. So start with one then go through to order them

[jarvis393]

That sounds simple enough but for some reason I cannot affect it.

Am pretty green with Sketchup. Not even exactly sure what you mean by “Outliner”.

What are the actual mechanics of selecting the sub_component?’

Each of my sub_components has Size & Position Attributes.
I have tried right-clicking on the collapsed sub_component titles and dragging with the mouse button down and I have tried it with the attributes on display but nothing seems to move the dial?

Which part of the dialog box do you click on to make this happen?

[jarvis393]

I found the “Outliner”.

There does not, however, seem to be much correlation between contents in the Outliner and how sub_components are displayed in Dynamic Components.

In the Outliner things are more or less arranged alphabetically.
In the Dynamic Components they are sorted randomly.

I can’t seem to affect the ordering in Outliner unless I also rename a part.

[pcmoor]

you can move a component within outliner to another component by drag and drop, you can right click any item and use the corresponding menu too
To preform the order, one takes a component from its container (parent) and place it elsewhere, then move it back, this then places it at the “end” of its entities list

you will notice that a line appears during this action which helps facilitates its position on the outliner

I may have cause you some confusion, the actions all take place in outliner, the arrows in the pictures between the attribute dialog and outliner are there to match the component or group names, any discrepancies in these names and required correction are part of your organisation skills

[jarvis393]

Thank you Phillip for your very detailed response.
I have been studying it for a couple of days and I am still not sure it does what I am looking for.

What I am struggling with is how to have some control over the order that sub_components show up in the attributes dialog box. When developing a formula based attribute I find myself having to hunt & scroll through the components list in order to find the field I want to address in my calculation. With three position attributes and three dimension attributes per component this adds up quick.

I was not able to make the ANIMAL list get out of alphabetical order in the OUTLINER.
This makes sense to me.

What does not make sense is the randomness of how the components show up in Attributes Dialog Box.

In case you are interested I will show you a typical outcome:

I created five components in this order of creation:
I then merged them into one Master Component called ANIMALS

I created the components in non-alphabetic order.
The Outliner alphabetized them.
The Attributes Dialog box completely randomized the order.

CREATION ORDER *** ATTRIBUTES DIALOG ORDER *** OUTLINER ORDER

CAT --------------------------------------CAT------------------------------------ANT
ANT --------------------------------------DUCK---------------------------------BIRD
BIRD------------------------------------- BIRD----------------------------------CAT
ZEBRA-----------------------------------ANT------------------------------------DUCK
DUCK------------------------------------ZEBRA--------------------------------ZEBRA

Please don’t feel obligated to solve this problem for me.
I very much appreciate the time you have given me so far.
I am new at this and sure I will have a lot of really boneheaded questions coming up so I thank you for your patience.

[pcmoor]

thats okay
in outliner select ANT and whilst selected drag it outside ANIMALS release then either move it back or click undo, if you then check the ANIMAL component the ANT sub component should now be at the end of the collection of components in the attribute dialog, then you do same for BIRD…until all ordered

You could private message me with a copy of one of your components and will order it for you as a way of checking to “see we are on the same page”