I like SketchUcation’s plug in manager. How do I get it and install it in SU 2016?
You can download the rbz here:
and install it at the preferences → extensions tab.
You’ve been a member there for 8 years and visited today so I’m curious why you came here to ask the question and not there?
The link is at the top of the page whenever you visit the site.
I think it is most relevant to SketchUp. I increasingly have the feeling that Trimble is trying to control and limit how people use SketchUp. It seems to be making outside resources difficult to access. I’m really disappointed in the spirit behind SketchUp which from my perspective has degraded tremendously since Trimble took over. It used to have the feeling of a cooperative community project. I didn’t see any way to ask the questions at SketchUcation. Unfortunately SketchUcation also seems to have become mainly a marketing/sales tool.
I wonder where you got these false impressions.
You can come here and get an amazing amount of assistance and Sketchucation has forums where you can also get help. All of that help is free. There’s no charge for the Sketchucation Plugin Store nor for SketchUp’s Extension Warehouse both of which were developed to make it extremely simple to install extensions and keep them up to date. And you call that a “marketing/sales tool”?
There is some content that is not offered for free but most is available to you at no charge.
as they say, I’d like to agree, but then we’d both be wrong…
Trimble are trying to control how people can BREAK SketchUp, but you still can if you try hard enough…
Installing plugins has never been easier or safer for the novice user, the main channel being built into the app…
Higher Security measures from Apple and MS have more impact then changes intrinsic to SU…
Unless you write plugins, the Trimble changes should have caused minimal disruption…
I still use both forums as do many others here…
john
I seem to have hit a sensitive nerve. I’m not committed to the view I expressed and I would be happy to be wrong. However, what I said is an accurate statement of how I have perceived changes in SketchUp and in SketchUcation. SketchUcation’s newsletter used to have lots of articles on how to do things with SketchUp, i.e. how to use the capabilities SketchUp has to achieve special results. Now most of the articles seem to be promotions for commercial software for sale. For example, I am looking back at the November 2015 newsletter. Of 8 items covered in 7 are items for sale. None of them tell you how to do something with the software you already have (i.e. SketchUp and maybe Ruby too). That’s not to say that this advertised software isn’t useful and isn’t worth buying. It is just that the newsletter is devoted to selling, not to educating you to use the tools you have.
I liked it better before.
So you’re judging Sketchucation on a monthly newsletter and failing to take into consideration the hundreds and hundreds of threads in the forum where members are helping other members learn how to use the program and they are doing it at no charge as well as over 700 extensions the vast majority of which are available for free. There’s much more information than would fit into a monthly newsletter. That’s a very narrow view you have.
Maybe you’re a bit quick to judge my “narrow view”. I think you are taking this too hard. I haven’t participated a lot in the SketchUcation Forum. I mostly use the Google Groups. People are very helpful and generous with their time on the forum. I don’t doubt they are the same on the SketchUcation forum. In the past there were great articles and tutorials that teach you how to use SketchUp. In the past SketchUcation was very clearly about education. It did not have the commercial aspect it has now. A newsletter expresses the direction of an organization. When a newsletter is 90% commercial that says something about the organization. It didn’t used to be that way.
I like articles that teach me something about SketchUp. How to do new things with it. How to use it more effectively. I haven’t seen that in SketchUcation newsletters for a long time. There may be new tutorials and new articles on the SketchUcation website but I would have missed them because I had always relied on the newsletter to highlight new stuff on the site.
That’s like relying of Fox news for your world view.
Are you equating the SketchUcation newsletter with Fox News?
Have you ever thought about the fact that the traffic of nearly 400.000 members have to be paid especially with all the free content?
If you are able to criticize the forum, you should get involved and make it an even more better place instead?
(all other participants of this discussion are doing so…)
Actually, it’s an apples vs. oranges comparison, but the SketchUcation newsletter is infinitely more informative in its own genre than is Fox in the “news” genre of which it claims to be a part.
Cotty, I appreciate your presence and participation. I wasn’t criticizing the forum. However the newsletter is not nearly as good as it used to be. And SketchUcation seems to have lost its early spirit. As far as I can tell the free items are mostly from the past. Some are promotional items. SketchUcation no longer seems much different from any commercial operation. Microsoft has forums for its products that are free and participatory. Most commercial vendors do. I just got another newsletter which is entirely promotions for things for sale. I get these kinds of emails from many commercial vendors. Sometimes I read them. Sometimes I don’t. Now that SketchUcation is like other commercial vendors I skim the email to see if there is anything interesting. Since there aren’t any educational articles I usually don’t look further. Sometimes there is something I might want to buy and I take a further look.
I run a non-profit Institute so I understand very well that even a non-profit needs money to function. I just feel that with SketchUcation the pendulum has swung way to far toward the emphasis of making money.
Again, I greatly appreciate people such as yourself who offer their expertise to others. It is something special
There have been some big projects in the past (Plugin Store / Extension Store, Basecamp London, Edg3D, Duh! Book (coming soon), …) and only a few people who do most of the work. You’re right that the newsletter (or the legendary CatchUp) had been more informative in the past, but, as said before, everyone can take the initiative and try to help to improve the content…
I would like to help. I’m afraid my skills aren’t quite up to the level needed for that. I’ll give some thought to it and see if there is anything useful I can contribute.
Our non-profit has done some interesting stuff using SketchUp. But from a SketchUp skills point of view it is pretty elementary.
Hi, I went to the SketchUcation forum to make a suggestion for SketchUcationTools but it said, “You do not have the required permissions to read topics within this forum.”
Where do I go from there?
You have to be logged in and choose an appropriate subforum to create your topic (The root level is read only I think).