Thanks for helping me debug this. I found a hidden setting that should allow you to proceed.
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I was finally able to complete the survey. However, one thing I would like to have seen, in particular based on comments I have seen on this forum, was a question about the icons on the toolbars. I would have been happy to give the currents icons a 2 or 1 and the old ones a 4 or 5.
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Survey done.
Errs on the side of ‘lite’…
done.
let’s just make the mac interface like the pc one. and a more obvious / simpler way to customize toolbars, like the top one on a mac.
but really, the PC interface on both and let’s move on.
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I found a lot of the questions to be not yet relevant because they are specific to things I cannot do on the Mac.
yeah, true. managing trays ? well we don’t have any.
same with customizing the interface, placing panels and toolbars wherever we want… well we already can, but because of macos’s way of keeping track of where stuff is, it’s not always great.
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Yes but let’s keep the Mac ‘Crayons/Pencils’ colour palette and give those to PC 
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oh yeah, when it comes to picking a colour, apple’s panel is way better. I often work with colours first, and it’s “click-click-poof” level of ease.
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Well that was mildly disappointing, I thought we were off on an adventure to improve SU functionality e.g. improved attribute handling, filling the gaps in the availability of search tools in panels, and a new material handler for MacOS etc, not just let’s play shuffle board with icons.
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So basically you’re just going to fiddle with organisation of trays and panels for PC users, nothing for Mac users, and nothing that would actually make life easier and better like an easy way to export consistently usable files from Layout to .dwg, god forbid .vwx
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do you expect the people in charge of the interface to change how layout manages dwgs ?
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No, just highlighting that this is seemingly just frivolous fiddling around the edges rather than any significant improvement to the software.
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Agree. The recent icon changes struck me as style not substance.
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Fictional story:
( Any correspondence with reality is purely coincidental…)
Four years ago, my wife complained that one of the windows in her car does not work, she hears some noise from the passenger compartment, the seat adjuster is stuck, the air conditioner does not cool, the radio volume sometimes changes by itself, and so on. The complaints slowly died down over the years, but I decided to surprise my wife. Last weekend I painted the car a lovely baby blue (her favorite) and I saw how happy she was when she got it.
Yesterday, she again listed the complaints she made four years ago. I seriously don’t understand why she doesn’t appreciate my great effort in painting.
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Hi there, it’s great to have the opportunity to interface and offer suggestions to improve SketchUp. I have been using Sketchup for about 4 years now and there are definitely a few reoccurring issues which I feel would make SKU more usable
- Better materials management.
The current materials palette feels like a hold back to an earlier version of this application when it was free. Hunting little coloured boxes to figure out which one might be the material we are looking for seems like an oversight. names should always be visible at a glance
The materials palette could be a much more useful tool if it was more context aware. When I click on an object, the materials palette could passively highlight the textures attached to the selected geometry. Upon selecting a material in the palette the edit palette should automatically display all the adjustable details automatically so they are accessible without double/triple clicking.
- Better Import Management.
SketchUp’s Ace in the hole as a 3D software is the depth and breadth of models available through 3D Warehouse. But the way SKU deals with importing these models seems clumsy and unpolished. When dropping an accessory from a third party model to a large scene, I can literally add dozens of new materials with no way of identifying them or easily deleting them or replacing them with materials already in my model.
I suggest treating incoming models as entities contained in a separate silo. Not only do they arrive as a grouped entity on the default layer, but their textures arrive in a personalized texture folder, and their details and attributes can be viewed and controlled in a single palette. By selecting the materials folder it would be easy to reassign materials from the imported model to materials from the existing model. Suggestions for doing this could be provided by the application by looking for close match in the texture attributes (all brushed aluminums have similar settings, as does glass, as do most families of materials.)
- Keeping Models Clean.
It would be great if SKU would offer a way to clean up its files before saving. When playing about with different styles and looks, I’m finding the every variant I test out suddenly becomes included in the model. Then when I’m trying to invoke a specific look I’m left trying a bunch of little tiles in the hopes of falling on the right variant. At the very least, save only the styles actually in use in the file, but at best let me choose if I want to save any alternate effects by asking me to save them in the model or just deleting them as a discarded idea.
Hope these offer some food for thought.
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Well unsurprisingly this topic has turned into bashing of some main issues with SketchUp that are rattling. That won’t help @jeremy_kerbs do his job better, he’ll have to filter out all the stuff that he has no influence on due to the nature of his position in the team.
I’d like to say a few words on the topic at hand.
First off: in most cases where the survey allows “other” as an option it couldn’t actually be filled out so I’ll put something here.
You seem to be thinking in the direction of organising tools based on workflows.
This reminds me of how Affinity organises their tools. For a new application such as affinity this is a valid setup. But since SketchUp already has a huge user base who use the program for a ton of different things, it’s quite difficult to pinpoint from a top down perspective how these workflows flow and who uses which tools in which order and more importantly: why.
Now that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the concept as such. I use a ton of plugins and I have about 40 toolbars that I use. All of them.
It would be great to be able to group certain toolbars into eg toolbar tabs similar to how Rhino organises that. For example: I find myself switching off all vray tools - 4 toolbars! - when I’m presenting topics that have nothing to do with rendering.
As for the main sketchup functions: I use mainly shot cut keys for that but i keep the tools on the screen just so it still « feels like home » … is that weird? 
In short: if you’re looking for a bit of reform please don’t hesitate to look around at how other software does it and ask people “do you like how x does it”. Don’t invent the wheel and don’t be all subtle where you don’t need to be.
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Here you can see my preferred SU and LO workspace that works with my workflow.
In SU, I like to keep mostly native toolbars with the exception of Enscape along the top and left. Third party plugin toolbars I place along the bottom. I keep the Trays on the right and make multiple trays dividing the panels into groups that make sense for my workflow.
In LO, I keep the trays on the Left. When working in LO and SU at the same time, this keeps the the sheet view in LO and the model view in SU centered on my 45" 3440x1440 monitor. Again, I group LO panels in a way that makes sense for my workflow as an Architect.
In general I think for both SU and LO:
- Keep it super customizable.
- Have templates workspaces based on different industry needs that can then be fully customized. (Architects, Mechanical Engineers, 3D Printers, Wood Workers,…)
- Allow saving multiple workspace layouts, and have an interface that allows for quickly changing between the different custom and standard workspaces such as Presentation Mode, Expert Mode, Show All mode…
- Allow importing and exporting one, a few or all workspace settings in one go, so I can setup my desktop computer workspaces, and then easily copy those to my laptop.
- Create a utility or better yet, during installation give the option to import those settings into the next version of SU/LO.
- Make it super easy to create my own icons for any command and custom toolbars groups.
- Allow Darkmode or other color variations to the interface. You could go one step further, ala Winamp, and allow custom skins to be created.
- Make every single possible command (native, or plugin) capable of having a shortcut made. I can’t remember off the top of my head which command I was trying to make a shortcut for, but when looking for it in the list, it did not show up, leaving me to have to use the icon or menu option for it’s use. (Shortcuts are by far the fastest way to work)
- Within Trays, allow having multiple copies of a any panel in different trays. For example, in LO I like to have a CSP tray that includes Color, Shape and Patterns. In my Text+Dims tray it would be nice to also include the Color panel, so when I want to change the color of the text, I don’t have to then click over to the CSP tray for that.
- Don’t force scrolling or expanding/contracting panels to look for commands. In my workflow and in my trays and panels, I try to limit scrolling by limiting how many items are in any particular Tray. This helps keep things in one spot, making it easy for me to find and limits the number of clicks to start a command.
- Allow existing users to keep things just as they are if they want to. A new modern interface can be great, especially for new users and those that like change, but don’t force people that have been using your product for 10 to 20+ years to relearn how to use their pencil. If you decide to give SU/LO a drastic facelift that ends up rearranging or altering the look of the interface, make sure to keep a Classic Mode option, allowing a choice for the long time users to keep it the way they like it.
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I think your 11 item list is very good. Especially, being able to save/reuse settings/UI from the past. In my years of using SU I have found that some of the updates/changes were not necessarily improvements or made me have to make a number of changes to my work flow. Now I am just a hoppiest (lost my sponsor) so the changes are not as much of a problem though. But again, I think the list is a good one with several good points.
More widgets. Having to go into a menu three or four clicks deep to have a certain view is inefficient. Being able to click into an isometric view with one click is a lot better.
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I concur with this…
On top of this - the Merge Materials extension (should be built-in to Sketchup) would be extremely useful with an option of Merging materials of very similar character even it they are a few values / variables off, color, texture size, and texture maps.
can’t even begin to tell you how many wood textures I get every time I import a piece of furniture in.
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