In that case, I don’t know why you are finding LO sub-par. It certainly has its limitations, living outside of SU, but that also gives it significant advantages. You can pull almost anything into it which is great for presentation purposes. Are your files especially big, I wonder?
I migrated fully to SU/LO a few years back after mainly using AutoCad. AC used to drive me batty a lot of the time. Even as an experienced user of AC and an inexperienced SU user, I found it much nicer using SU. Of course, there are some things that suck for a 2D draftsman. The lack of proper circles/arcs is a big one. But at the end of the day, it’s horses for courses. If you prefer something else, use that.
The thing is, I don’t prefer using anything else. SU is the nicest software I’ve ever used but if I want to get out technical docs from a model I’m shackled to LO. That’s why it’s so frustrating. I would love Trimble to do the business and push LO development hard. But I suspect it’ll be slow and incremental.
We are a bit off topic from the OP. Maybe this part of the thread should be moved to Layout>Feature Requests? If so, it might be an idea to be more specific about what you want from LO that are not getting.
I am using windows 7 with SU/LO 2018 for full on documentation (and struggling with it) Are you saying that windows 7 could be the cause of problems. Sorry I am a luddite and don’t know anything about operating systems. Although my laptop is on windows 10 but doesn’t seem any different.
I have no issues running SU2018 on Win7.
In fact it runs better on my Win 7 than on my Win 10 due to the Win 7 having a better processor and graphics card.
Well, Windows 7 is a pretty old OS and SU 2018 is current software. In general, software, hardware, and OS systems tend to evolve in concert and so it doesn’t take long before one falls over trying to run something much more up to date. However, I am no techie and use a Mac, and as @Box has written, it does seem possible to run SU 2018 on Windows 7. So maybe that was all a red herring.
You have a strange reaction. Every body want Sketchup to be better and self satisfaction is not the best way to go up, it is just good to fall asleep. It sounds like a soviet discussion “if you don’t agree comrade you just put yourself out of the Party” nice program !
Excuse my english.
When Google (BIIIG developer) was driving Sketchup, if anything, they simplified it. That’s the beauty of SU. It knows exactly what it is and does exactly what it’s meant to do very efficiently.
Layout is perfect for a small architectural practice (more efficient workflow than REVIT). Of course you wouldn’t use it when I lot of players are adding BIM information to a massive infrastructure project. At about 10% of the cost of Revit, I just think small to medium size practices dismiss LO at their own peril especially when most are already using SU…
SketchUp should really be in the habit of absorbing and integrating great plug-ins into the core program. It could also do a better job of highlighting useful plug-ins to install - it’s easy to understand why so many fail to bring in revenue when they are all buried inside the extension store.
While the extension visibility is far from good I understand why they have not baked in any of the plugins. I would prefer two to be included (subdivision and vertex editing) into the actual app and Sketchup would have everything I need. But if it had any of the architecture focused plugins included, cut lists etc I would get super annoyed with the extra clutter.
They need to redo the extension warehouse however as it not great right now.
Ed: to add, I know I’m in the minority not using Sketchup for any ArchViz.
I think it would be possible without excessive clutter. A few sub menus and more customization in the GUI would do the trick. Anything would be better than the current state of extensions - where they literally end up everywhere and in every form imaginable.
The sub menu would be the extension warehouse itself, just a much better and easy to use version.
Plugin developers would also be incentivised somehow to design the GUI of plugins to match up with native SketchUp toolbars and logo sets
SketchUp would create ‘packs’ or ‘bundles’ that would gather (2+) plugins suited for different areas of expertise. For example you could download the automotive bundle, the illustration bundle, woodwork etc. These could be a mix of user generated, SketchUp (team) generated and expert generated. For example Dave Richards would compile a woodwork bundle as he knows his stuff.
Everything would be easy to find and navigate but there would be no ‘bloatware’, everybody is happy! I think they will get round to improving it and hopefully at basecamp this year there is a facility to give input at least for 2019/2020.
I’d add an ability to have profiles that would contain all of a user’s extensions that would be easily transferable once you upgrade or switch machines - or just want to share extensions with a co-worker. Navigating to the hidden plug-ins folder is more difficult than it should be - and it’s often hard to tell how many files inside the plug-ins folder are co-dependent on one another.
Great stuff. Worth a shot.