Forecasting OS Compatibility for SketchUp 2019

(currently: SU 2018 on OSX 10.10.5)


I’m not interested in pushing anyone for a release date here on SU 2019.

But I am trying to find out, if at all possible, what the OSX compatibility will be once it does come out.

I’m guessing that this sort of information is already known, and probably unlikely to change at this point in time. And generally speaking, If I know this in advance, I can start making plans, and decisions about the near or semi–distant future.

I’ve been holding off on the last couple of OS releases because other software I have won’t run anymore if I upgrade above what I already have. Unfortunately, good substitutions for those programs aren’t currently available at the moment, but they might be in another year or two (…they’re being replaced with complete software rewrites, that aren’t far enough along in development to compete with the features of the older edition that I currently rely on).

Anyhow, If SketchUp is to be slated for a newer OS, then I’d like to start getting prepared for it now. I’m not against modernizing my system, for sure. But, I also like to get the most out of any existing software, especially when it currently has a fullest feature set, and is producing the best results.

Knowing how SketchUp will fit in here will be very helpful.

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Windows runs legacy apps in compatibility mode.

There are half a dozen 2019 extensions in the extension warehouse - you might be able to find some OS compatibility via those.

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From your message it seems you’re running Mac OS 10.10.5, but you only wrote 10.10.5 in your profile. Someone might think that is a variation of Windows 10. Also, it would be good to know what version of SketchUp you’re running.

I’m guessing that you are using SketchUp Pro 2017, because the 2018 version already requires Mac OS 10.11.

It is curious that 63 extensions in the warehouse show as being SketchUp 2019 compatible, ahead of there being a SketchUp 2019!

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I’m running SU 2018 Pro without any issue, on 10.10.5. and It’s been the primary version I’ve used since it was released.

Profile settings have been updated, too. Thanks for the corrections, @colin


Sorry for the confusion @GSTUDIOS, I thought I had all my stuff together better than that.

I don’t remember a newer version of SketchUp has added again OS support that was dropped in a previous version. So even without knowing anything about 2019, the original question can (unfortunately) be answered.

The future of compatibility is virtualization. Atari and DOS games can be run in a browser (either streamed from a server-side emulator or compiled to client-side JavaScript). SketchUp runs on any mobile devices in a browser. Games with high-end graphics can be streamed from remote GPUs to light-weight mobile devices. On many systems, apps can be packaged with their dependencies into containers that can be run independently from the OS version.
Key is to make virtualization invisible (and zero setup) for the end user.

So you could upgrade your OS if you find a way to run the legacy apps in an older OS runtime (with virtualization or on another computer via VNC/remote desktop). It’s a pitty that Apple does not yet provide an app container format for packaging and running older apps.

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since SU started shipping it’s own Ruby version and since v17, it’s own browser, the mac OS ‘supported version’ has become far less critical…

I’d hold out and test before updating tif that kills other needed apps…

john

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I understood you were using a Mac OS, I just mentioned app compatibility for comparison on Windows.

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If you examine the SketchUp Hardware and Software Requirements page, you’ll see that the SketchUp owner has generally “supported” the 3 latest OS versions on both platforms.

In years following when Apple released a new OSX version, one version was dropped from “active support.” So, since Mojave has come out, it is more than likley “support” may be dropped for El Capitan.

But there have also been a few odd years out when no “support” changes took place regarding OS versions. There is always the possibility that support could be added for Mojave without removing support for El Capitan if there are still significant numbers of Pro users still using that version of OSX.


But “active support” is a different thing then compatibility, as you know, since you’ve been running SU2018 on Yosemite.

It is also different for the MS Windows platform, because the SketchUp owners switch off compatibility of the application installer for non-supported Windows versions and the install will exit prematurely.


I think you’d do well to make upgrade plans.

Is there a dual boot system with Macs that let you decide which OS to run ?

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Version 18.1.1180 (Mac 64-bit) that came out a few months ago fixed the last remaining Mojave issues. So, there’s one example of adding support of a new macOS without dropping support for an earlier Mac OS.

One complication with trying to run Mojave and Yosemite would be if you have used APFS under High Sierra or Mojave. Booting from the Yosemite drive wouldn’t let you read that APFS drive.

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Hi Folk’s,

I would very much like to set up a virtual machine on my computer, and/or run a copy of Windows under Apple’s dual boot system ‘boot camp’.

I’ve had a small bit of experience with this, not necessarily all that good (and definitely not on par with the folks who are helping me out on this thread). But here’s a brief ‘outline style’ summary—written this way to hopefully save reading time—but also to paint a realistic picture of where I’ve been and where I’m sitting at now.

——

  • fwiw, I did originally start off as a Windows Desktop users, (running 2000, then XP) on a desktop computer I built myself, and still have around today.

  • Eventually bought a copy of Window 7 Professional, but could NOT install it because my windows desktop hardware didn’t support the newer software.

  • Picked up a laptop (a Mac), and one day remembered that I still have a copy of Windows 7 laying around.

  • Buy Parallels, install Win 7 into Parallels,… Activate it,… and I couldn’t be any happier!!.. Truly excited to have, and start learning about virtual machines… and check out a couple of other ‘exotic’ OS systems (… Linux Mint / Debian), out of fun, interest, and to learn just a little bit about them.

  • Typical experience running Win 7 under Parallels = My laptop would run pretty hot, fans blasting far louder than with any other program. (Over heating not as bad using Debian Linux and Parallels, but at the time didn’t have much of a linux software collection).

  • A Concurrent Experiment:… promotional software sale… I buy a copy of a Windows program that comes and installs as a ‘Wine’ package directly onto OSX. Don’t even need Parallels to run this one. So I eagerly try it out… and eventually discover that the COPY and PASTE commands don’t work at all inside of the program. Give up on this one, but keep it around for a future experiment and challenge.

  • Parallels comes out with a new version. I install it to see if the over heating issues continue, and it doesn’t seem to be any better than before.

  • I try to roll back into my licensed copy of Parallels and I can’t because the trial version overwrites the previously installed version of the program.

  • Phone call to Parallels company… “How do I get my old version back?” I don’t like the answer I hear.

  • Start looking into Apple’s boot camp program… I make an ISO image of WIN 7 to install, and…

  • Soon discover that Apple only supports and provides drivers for the most current version of Windows. which was Win 10 at the time.

  • A few months ago now, I hear a review about how bad Apple’s support has become for running Windows under it’s boot camp program—and I tend to trust the source I heard this from. Accusation that they limit the driver set to a minimum of what it could be… and even the latest versions of Windows don’t run as well as they could.

End of Background history.
———

Thank You to everybody, who’s checked in on me. I appreciate it, and I think that this next time I’ll do a little better job at setting up my legacy proof computer.

I’ll be in need of a couple of more virtualization’s than I originally thought… never expected that two were going to be in play here just on the Apple side. But I’ve stayed on the platform long enough now to have actual legacy issues.

In spite of my brief encounter with Parallels, I’m am definitely no expert here. I preformed the minimum number of steps in order to install the the program, and to get Win 7 up and running on it.

There was probably some room for improvement, or a setting to two that could have kept the increased temps down a bit… or, at least I’d like to think so.

I’m pretty close to test driving VMware Fusion, to see how that goes.

Take Care, and Thanks Again,

Jim

Over time I have switched back and forth between Fusion and Parallels. Both are way more convenient than Boot Camp, for people like me who need to rapidly test Mac one moment and Windows the next. A recent update made it be compatible with SketchUp again, and I can keep Windows 10 open in the background without my fans going crazy.

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What I mean is ideally the user has nothing to do other than launching an app, the OS could invisibly ensure everything is there for compatibility with older apps (with older OS versions being runtimes like the Java runtime of which one can have multiple installed). Or it could be run remotely without the user noticing it. But that is not yet the present.

Is it possible for you to run an older version of macOS in a virtual machine, or is your license valid only for one installation? On modern computers CPU strain is much less than years ago since virtualization can now be hardware-accelerated.

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Here is a new paragraph in the system requirements page:

" Compatibility Changes

SketchUp 2019
With the release of SketchUp 2019 we’ve removed support for Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan). You now need to log-in with a Trimble ID to access SketchUp Pro 2019 or to participate in a Free Trial."

https://help.sketchup.com/en/sketchup/sketchup-hardware-and-software-requirements

Would still be interesting to test 2019 under Mac OS 10.11, even if it’s not supported it might still function.

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works fine for me, no noticeable issues yet…

john

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Thank You for bringing this to my attention.

And Thanks Again to everybody for all of the previous comments. This has encouraged me to take up the practice of using virtual machines once again.

On my own I probably would have avoided that (due to past experiences), But it’s clear now that I need to work harder towards a solution in that area… since all fingers point in this direction anyhow.

The picture that @Aerilius paints is a nice one. And I’d like to just wake up one day to that world… without having to drudge through any more of the transitional phase. But of course there are other dreams to have, and some enjoyment to be found in working with things as they are.

Take Care,

Jim

I haven’t studied the subscription prices closely, but as I understand it so far, instead of buying at $695and then paying $120 per year for support and updates, you buy it for nothing, but pay $299 per year to get support and updates. Roughly speaking, and old pro buyer who added on two extra years of support ends up paying about the same as a subscriber does in the same three years.

In a fourth year the old pro buyer would start to gain a little ($120 per year instead of $299 per year), but these are all pro license figures. Hopefully most pro users are getting at least $300 income per year from business that they get because they use SketchUp.

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I would rephrase: Instead of buying a license for use and additional fee for maintenance and support, you now pay for having access to a range of SketchUp related software.

In general, you don’t buy to get or to ‘own’ any software, you buy to use it.

I do not know if you will have access to those features when you have a classic license.

I hadn’t seen that features when we’ve got em cycle part. But that is exactly what Adobe said, and with Adobe it has worked out well enough, in addition to important fixes that come out when needed, they have a couple of significant new feature releases each year. Most times one of those releases is at the time of their conference, and the other is typically in June. So, not quite ad-hoc, but better than being just yearly.

For classic licenses who still have the $120 per year support, that does include updates, but you would only be getting the SketchUp Pro updates, you still wouldn’t have access the $1500 Hololens software or the AR features in the mobile app.

Not sure if this matters for this thread but I did install and so far no issues with SketchUp Pro 2019 on Windows 7 Pro 64 SP1

It’s supposed to be compatible — and well tested!