[DEPRECATED][Extension] KG-dev CADoptimus - Component Manager - list, search and use your local and in-model components

don’t take me wrong, competition is healthy…

e.g. there are many renderers that all do the same thing at the end of the day…

when you submit an extension, EW ‘should’ inform you of competition already hosted…

personally, I would choose a ‘comp browser’ that’s optimised for mac’s, that ‘lazy loads’ all it’s resources only when I want to use it, and looks and feels ‘native’…

bit like my own version…

john

We did a comparison between the flextools plugin and CADoptimus Component Manager and we immediately noticed a major difference: Flextools is able to list and search components based on their filename, where CADoptimus Component Manager is able to scan the content of each file and perform searches on that. I have a folder with a bunch of .skp files with nonsense names and you simply cannot use it with flextools, since it uses the filename to search. With my extension however, that same folder is usable. See the following screenshot for a comparison:

And, when performing the same search:

Also regarding the search possibilities of my extension; not only the name of the component is taken into consideration, but actually any dynamic attribute it has, see the next screenshot, where I have added an attribute to “Marc” and am able to perform a search based on that attribute:

So, I believe this is not a simple copycat. Do you agree?

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Nice!
(it couldn’t be a copy cat since you didn’t know about it)

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It would get really interresting if you could tag the components within SketchUp and the component manager could find them…
:smiley:

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That is possible in a certain way already, if you add a new dynamic attribute to your components. But, I believe the reason you want to tag is to quickly find them (obviously…) and that got me thinking about search presets, or some kind of “named favorites”, which would allow you to store a previous search. How does that sound?

I like the 'Frequently Used ’ menu found in many drag and drop type applications…

no need for me to mark them at all as they bubble up the list automagically…

far more useful than ‘Last Used’ IMHO…

john

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I think both automagic favorites as the tags named by @MikeWayzovski make sense. Let me add that as feature requests and see when i am able to merge those in. Next few days i have to work on making Tag Manager a tad quicker.

I believe some key features that are missing to Component Manager are:

  • Being able to sort the list of component in various ways: Most used, last used, loaded in model
  • Being able to store in-model components into the local filesystem based library from the dialog
  • List what has changed: In-model updated in comparison to the library one? Vice versa? I noticed there are some x-ref-like extensions out there. Not really willing to duplicate the extensions out there but on the other hand it makes much sense to have such functionality in a component “manager”.
  • being able to open a library component in a new instance of SketchUp from the dialog, edit and being able to update if loaded in the model.
  • Currently only components are listed in the browser and not groups. It is possible however to also list those.

What do you think? What is for you a real missing functionality when working with components?

Hi, component manager with xref capabilities seems a lot more useful. There are xref managers out there but they don’t seem to have all this functionality

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How about listing in-model group “definitions” in component manager and also giving the possibility to select all instances in a model for a given definition? That would solve the issue I see in Eneroth Material Usage Inspector

Edit: not that there is a problem with that extension, but with the fact that outliner lists every group as “group”.

Hi @kengey,

what we have been missing is an “eyedropper tool” as the one in materials (hit B for bucket tool and then hit ALT in windows), but working for components in the viewport.

That would allow us to pick a component in the list by finding it in the model.

I see. But for what purpose? What would be the next step once you have it visible in the list?

You could replace it for another one, you could edit properties like glue to plane, cut opening, face me, you could see how many you have in the model, you could save it externally, reload it or change it’s path.

There’s a lot of manipulations that could be performed in a component manager after you pick it. For most of us though, picking it from a list isn’t good as they are usually poorly named.

Got it.
I have uploaded a new version yesterday to also support sketchup 2018 (2017 is coming) and to also support groups instead of components solely.
Next up will be managing xrefs bidirectionally, so that a change in a local component can be pushed to the library, or a change in the library can be pulled back in to the model.

I have added the suggestions you made to my backlog and will see when and how I will be able to include those.

Got xRefs covered in version 1.1.239 :slight_smile:

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That’s great!

Not all objects are xrefs but finding those xrefs in the middle of every object is really handy for xref management functions.

Can Xrefed objects be filtered by your filter engine?
Can Xref objects that have been edited externally be filtered?
Can Xref objects that have been edited internally be filtered?
How to deal with objects that have been edited both internally and externally by some project management mistake?
Can those carry a warning, like file sync error software does, and also be filtered by the engine?

Can we somehow push all the changes made to external or internal components automatically or with a single click of a button?

And if so, how to deal with components with sync errors?

All those actions are really handy and especially the ability to somehow compare components that have those “sync” mistakes.

It would be interesting, in this case, to be able to edit external files with the click of a button or edit certain internal components externally, by opening a new sketchup instance from within the current sketchup session.

This would convert this component manager into a full fledged internal and external component manager, and not only a component library manager and would become very interesting for bigger architectural offices working with sketchup.

In conjunction with your tag manager, IFC attributes, BIM export it would be a powerful system.

There is also

Filtering based on different statuses is next on my list, together with opening xrefs by a button click.

It’s getting better, step by step.

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Will be very willing to try this in September

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Hi the link seems not to be working any longer, is this still availiable. I could really use a good component manager.

Hi Scott,

Sorry, I have given up in this one. But, the good news is: Component Finder looks like a great replacement: ComponentFinder – FlexTools

Component Finder is part of the reason why it doesn’t make very much sense to spend time on Component Manager.