Extension toolbars

Extensions
1

Not sure if this should be a question or a suggestion.

When you install a new extension, it often comes with a toolbar that appears automatically onscreen.

If you hover over the various options within those boxes, it generally tells you what the tool item is. But there is no reference back to the extension itself. What would be nice is if the name of the extension appeared when you hovered over the “neutral” parts of the toolbar. Otherwise, you are left guessing which toolbar relates to which extension - at least until you get used to recognising them.

I wonder if this is more of a Mac thing? The floating toolbars appear randomly placed, sometimes horizontal, sometimes vertical, usually near top left. Maybe this variability is inevitable with open source.

I generally find that I only use one or two tools from the options available and prefer to have them on the standard toolbar across the top of the screen, allowing me to close the toolbars and reclaim real estate.

It’s not a big gripe, just something that could maybe be a bit more user-friendly? Unless I am doing things wrongly…

2

Can you give an example of what extensions do this?

1 Like
3

I don’t see it on Windows

4

You are speaking of toolbars (aka tool palettes on the Mac) not dialog boxes.

Please correct the topic title. Also, this belongs likely in the Feature Requests category as it is a core feature that extension developers have no control over. Devs can give a name to the toolbar, but it only appears when the toolbar is floating and may be cropped if the toolbar is short, (ie, only having a few buttons.)

When it comes to dialog boxes their captions bars are always showing.

5

Here is what my screen currently looks like (before I get around to tidying it up):

Screenshot 2024-10-30 at 18.37.11.pdf (526.2 KB)

I will have to do some digging to work out what extensions they belong to.

6

OK. So tool palettes not dialog boxes as you originally wrote.

Looks like Dan has addressed this.

7

I don’t have a Mac, so not sure.

But on Windows, when extension toolbars open the first time, they open (horizontally) near the top left of the application and cascade down and to the right, one after the other.
The user can move them, resize then and dock them. When SketchUp is successfully closed, their positions are saved into the Preferences file, then restored if reopened.

8

I think the only difference is that on a Mac, they get placed randomly and stay as non-docking floating toolbars. If you move them or close them, that does seem to be reflected the next time you open SU, just like on Windows. I actually have more than shows on the screen print as some are on top of others (not my doing!).

Knowing the name of the tool can help identify the extension but it is a bit hit and miss.

Anyway, maybe this is just something that bugs me alone!

9

I do see in your screen grab that the toolbar titles do not show on the Mac.

Do they appear as a tooltip if you hover over the caption bar (the part with the little colored circles) ?

10

No. All that happens is that the little circle turns red indicating that you can hide the toolbar if you click on it.

What you have described is what I would be after!

11

Some known peculiarities of toolbars on Mac (long-standing):

  • tool palettes (toolbars) always float; you can position them anywhere you like, including atop one another, but they will not dock to any edge of the screen or to other toolbars.
  • toolbars flip from vertical to horizontal orientation when you drag them to the top edge of the screen. They flip back if you drag them to the left or right edge. For some unknown reason, they don’t flip if you drag a vertical toolbar to the bottom edge.
  • when first viewed, most toolbars appear at the top left corner of the screen, where they are likely atop some other toolbar. It is up to you to move them away from there.
  • SketchUp saves where you last placed toolbars when it quits. They should come back in the same spot next time. If that isn’t happening, there is something wrong with your installation of SketchUp that is preventing it from writing to the PrivatePreferences.json file.
  • toolbar titles are never shown
  • toolbar button tooltips appear only on vertically oriented toolbars.
4 Likes
12

I think the critical thing here is “toolbar titles are never shown”. If that is a Mac thing that cannot be overridden, then what I am asking for is not currently possible.

Interestingly, the tooltips are extremely variable. Some toolbars seem not to have them, others do but they don’t always display. Odd that they only appear (if they do at all) in vertical toolbars. I wonder what the logic is there?

13

Here’s another interesting thing.

I have an extension called Lord of the Toolbars. Unlike other toolbars, it has no header bar or means of closing it. It always lodges in the same place.

If you click on the icon far right, you get a drop down that looks like this:

Screenshot 2024-10-31 at 17.00.55.pdf (255.1 KB)

As you can see, it gets a heading “History - LOTT”. So if you didn’t know what that toolbar was, you could find out from this alone. Not sure if that could be implemented more generally.

14

it’s part of the UI, the mac version was made using the official UI pack, cocoa, and it’s not as customisable as one might wish.
one more thing that will make the QT version (sooner or later) better, bring both UI closer.

that, or the toolbar is in the unsafe area : on both sides of your dock if you’re showing it, or partially outside of the screen. if so, it’ll kicked back a bit so it fits on screen, and sometimes it’ll be pushed to the second screen if you have one. that’s standard mac os behaviour to avoid windows and panels out of view (like the classic PC issue)