I saw that discussion in the forum, I also watched a little ConDoc Tools video (excellent work), I know that there is another multi-tag extension, and probably if in the future SketchUp will natively add multi tag and pie menu (which already exists for iPad), the improvement will be excellent.
But the appearance of this extension of yours will be very useful.
I read those and watched that as well. For now Iâm just playing with options. But I might try to ask or conceptualize what people want out of multiple attributes to try to make something useful.
Getting rid of nested groups to be able to organize and visualize a building will be very useful.
Group groups, group visibility and visibility by attribute:
Hmm - I see that some people donât like nesting too much. But to my way of thinking itâs natural.
Why would you like to use tags/attributes? How would you like to use tags/attributes?
I will think of an adequate and useful answer, but I need to document myself a bit first. Now that the appearance of this possibility of not needing nested groups seems palpable⌠
Even if I use Curic Drawing Tools and it is not necessary to make at least two clicks for each grouping level to be able to modify an element, it is much more useful to be able to âgroup/tagâ the elements of a level of a construction (who already each have a tag - interior walls, exteriors, windows, doors, furniture, rooms, etcâŚ) just by adding a second tag/attribute, which positions them as being part of a certain level (floor 1, etcâŚ), instead of I group them and assign a tag âfloor 1â to that group. And further, if those elements are part of the outside of the building or inside it. And so on.
Iâll think about this and see if I can come up with anything useful. Do you have an example file?
e.g.
A timber wall in a loft conversion might be Level 3 > Walls > External > New.
Curicâs DIO2 helps greatly for editing deeply nested objects but if I want to move deeply nested objects I need to drill down the groups.
Curicâs latest Select++ helps selecting deep nested objects.
IDK⌠Iâm quite used to this workflow â I think reducing the nesting would be good overall.
I have, but I will create a new simple model for exemplification, to which I will translate the names of the tags in English to be more useful.
The idea is to have a single level of grouping, but a lot of possibilities to show the respective elements in different configurations.
Hello @PaulMcAlenan - it was your commentary that I was reading when I decided to try making the attribute extension.
Iâm aware of Curicâs nice extensions but will have to take a closer lookâŚ
My take-away for now is that there is a need for reduced nesting.
I do know from messing around that it may be a bit of a tussle to display multiply-attributed groups and components. E.g., visibility toggle mismatch. Iâll post of video of the problem.
If you have attribute visibility toggling do you still want to use tags/tags panel? Should attribute visibility work in conjunction with group visibility toggling?
** I believe I saw your work featured in an SU blog? I liked it. I recently did a remodel trying to get a more modern/clean style similar to it.
A problem with multiple attributes. Are visibility toggle icons necessary (the eye open/closed), or is something like an update/refresh indication enough?
exp-02.skp (286.7 KB)
@3DxJFD Just a quick example, without much detail.
It would be ideal⌠the number of tags as small as possible and nested groups (required for viewing) maximum up to one level (better none).
Thanks for your interest!
Nesting makes it hard to reference other geometry (especially if you toggle between hide rest of model when editing a component or group) and it makes solid tools more difficult to use (you need to bring a solid that you might want to use as a cutter into the nested group to the proper level, etc.).
Also makes it difficult to manipulate and move individual items (shower, furniture, etc.). We already click enough - having nests of double clicks just to do simple things makes me crazy - so I limit my nesting until I get close to needing it for presentation (if at all).
Can attribute visibility be assigned to a scene? If you integrated âmulti tagâ by using scenes I would still use it, although my scene count might go up. I currently use scenes to isolate my geometry for easy working - so I isolate my structural components, walls and windows, interior walls, etc. all on scenes that can be selected to let me quickly get into that part of the building for working. If visibility attributes were keyed to scenes I would just make new templates for myself with some built in scenes that isolated things like this.
And yes, I would still expect to use tags, although I could see it where a âmulti viewâ control panel became the main way of controlling what is visible - you could use it to update visibility but then also update or create new scenes keyed to that visibility.
Seems to me that nesting should pertain to structural âpart ofâ hierarchy. A multi-tagging system would support other organizing systems, including non-hierarchical and âkind ofâ.
This distinction would work much closer to the way layers are used in many other apps. One could say âshow me everything tagged as âplumbingâ without first having to drill down into the bathroom, kitchen, etc that structurally contains that item.
Hi @bmike ,
That I donât know yet but Iâm going to try playing around to see how they work together.
The take-aways Iâm getting from you are:
Less nesting.
Attribute visibility within scenes.
Do scenes matter? I mean sometimes the camera position is not important. What is important is visibility control? But then, the scenes with specific attribute visibilities are important (e.g., for presentation to others). Thinking out loud that attributes could be converted to tags if needed for scenesâŚ
Hi @slbaumgartner ,
Okay, so by kind we could think of Plumbing and that could be âtoiletâ, âdrainâ, âsepticâ in no order or structure. Or in other words, âshow me the Plumbing and nothing elseâ and that has nothing to do with nesting categories like âInteriorâ/âExteriorâ, âBathroomâ/âKitchenâ. Almost like âshow me the color pink regardless of the relation to anything elseâ.
It seems a list of attributes could get too long to be wieldy (like tags). Iâm trying to think about user interface here. How does one show lists of attributes without the tidiness of nesting?
My current workflow with tag override in Layout is to have, say, the following scenes:
Modelling
Existing Front
Existing Rear
Existing Side 1
Existing Side 2
In Layout, for proposed viewports I override by turning off the existing tag and turning on the proposed tag.
As I understand it, because you canât control attributes from Layout, you then need to create those proposed scenes in SketchUp.
I would consider adding back those proposed scenes in SketchUp to have multi-tagging.
But I do use tag style override in Layout to minimise viewport stacking, so multi-tagging using attributes would mean going back to more stacked viewports I guess�
There a decision point that worth noting. As I have it, attribute visibility toggling works on top level groups/components and then on nested attributes when they are selected. This can create a visibility icon mismatch. A toggle button (without âeyeâ icon) could be used. But then it is possible that one tag/attribute is both visible and not visible at the same time depending on nesting level. That seems odd. Should attributes be restricted to components? Attributes for Groups, attributes for Components?