However, now, after pressing my shortcut key for unhiding all, the highlighted lines reappear.
Is this a bug or was it intentional? I’ve a feeling it’s a bug, as when I search “Soften” in the search bar, the eraser tool says that it can soften lines…
However, there’s also this feeling that makes me think that it was intentional. If I “Shift+E” a group, the group disappears and reappear only when I unhide.
With all these, I am really confused if “Shift+E” soften or hides.
Soften and smooth are used as synonyms here. The difference between hiding and softening/smoothing is that hiding does nothing to the adjacent faces while softening tries to make them look as belonging to a single continuous surface.
hide tells SketchUp not to display an edge. You can’t select a hidden edge unless you enable view->hidden geometry, but it has no other implications. There will be a visible, sharp change in shading across the edge, the same as if it was visible.
soften tells SketchUp to regard two faces bordering an edge as parts of a single surface so you can select, paint, etc them as a single item. It also tells SketchUp not to display the edge. You can select the individual faces and the edge only if view->hidden geometry is on. Like hidden, soft has no effect on shading.
smooth tells SketchUp to blend the shading of the faces across an edge so that the surface looks, well, smooth. A smoothed edge remains visible unless it is also hidden or soft. Softened and smoothed normally are done together; it is rare to smooth an edge that is not also soft.
Might not be quite clear what is meant by this.
e is the keyboard shortcut for the eraser tool.
So what is actually meant by ctrl+e and shift+ e is, if you use crtl with the eraser tool it will soften any edges you touch and shift with the eraser will hide any edges you touch.