Loving live components. Not as exciting for my OCD as tag folders but thrilling nonetheless!
I may be missing something simple here…but is there a way to have the live components window work in imperial units rather than metric?
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We’re working on adding attributes to LCs. Packaging some or all of the parameter values up as reportable values is an interesting Idea. We’ll discuss what can be done there.
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Live Components remind me of Delphi (Borland Pascal IDE from the 1990s). It was the first example of two-way properties: dragging the design changes the positional parameters and changing the scalar properties updates the graphic design
Thanks for the reminder
Ok i am getting confused here.
So when I want to stay with su2020 and not upgrade to subscribed new version because my work flow depends only on DC components,am i not able to use Live components?
Don’t you find it unfair to people that have been working on dc techniques, teaching others to find out how to work with them and praying to sketchup team for years to get the dc’s fixed and upgraded? The sketchup Community has grown rapidly just because of people like this making good money to sketchup and now when something new coming up,people with “latest” 2020 version cannot use it?
Can somebody tell me why is sketchup treating its loyal customers this way?
I just don’t get it.
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The live configuration inside 2021 depends on an internet connection, so you might as well have a tab open in a browser, open apps.sketchup.com and configure and download as an earlier version from there. Having set the download location to a collection in the component panel.
Edit: corrected version to 21
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There is no live configuration inside 2020.
The configuration can be done only in browser.
Before 2021 released, the live components could be downloaded as skp 2020 format. That is not the case anymore.
To be able to use this componets you have been forced to
- Update to 2021
- Do some extra jobb to convert it to 2020. (as you mentioned)
This is what pupoksveta resents.
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I don’t know if I will answer your question, but what you wrote caused me deep thought.
Let’s be honest, since Trimble became the owner of SU, there has been quite a lot of stagnation in the development of the program and the improvements expected from version to version have been negligible (let’s remember the storm of user negatives that followed the presentation of SU 2019). The creators of plugins and extensions have done most of their development. Some of what is now available in native tools is available to users of earlier versions as plugins and extensions (such as Weld Edges).
In my professional career, I work with many professional institutions (architects and design offices, for example) that still use SU 2016 or 2017 and do not even intend to upgrade to newer versions, because it does not see the point of paying a lot of money for small improvements. All the more so now that the annual subscription is the only way to use the program. I have discussed with them the new possibilities offered by the latest versions, but my arguments have always been rejected as insufficient and unnecessary for practical work. I think Trimble has already lost many potential customers of the program in this way. I also currently doubt the need to subscribe to 2021 and later. Currently, SU 2021 actually offers 4 news items, of which the change of logos is a purely cosmetic improvement that does not affect the work of the program in any way, tag grouping and filtering is pleasant (similar to Layer line types in SU 2019), but not so much that you can’t work without it. The PreDesign tool is not needed in my work at all. The net balance is Live Components, which, I agree, is a DC modification that I still find quite incomplete, and with DC and MindSight Studios Profile Builder I can still achieve results that are more relevant to my needs. Maybe I’m not right, so I applied for Live Components training.
Of course, it would be unfair not to note that much has been done in recent years to make the program more accessible (web-based version, Trimble Connect, etc.), but the very core of the program that every user (from newbie to professional) works every day is major improvements are expected.
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Well you see i find it really unfair. All this guys developing plugins and guys doing “lessons” to newbies. Guys like @pcmoor , @DanRathbun, @MikeWayzovski, @dezmo, @eneroth3 … and many more people . You guys were doing it for years as far as I remember back to the day I started to learn sketchup and dc and bits of ruby. And all I know is actually because of you and not because of sketchup team and them putting up some lessons and if, it was pretty poor couple of seconds long videos.
And now they say you have to go subscription and pay actually twice more money for sketchup if you want to use new feature LC .
I am wondering if anybody from them actually said THANK YOU for the great job you are doing here.
Probably not.
It is all just sad and iam sorry to have to write this.
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Um … the Dynamic Components extension was updated to v1.8.0 and can still be used in SketchUp 2017 through 2021 and beyond. You do not need to stay with SU2020 to continue to use DCs.
I believe that the Dynamic Components extension will remain available for many more years. There are just too many extension (some Trimble) that rely upon this functionality remaining usable.
I speculate that after a few years beyond Live Components being finalized, that the Dynamic Components extension would be “code frozen” and not receive any more updates. (Note that it has been “feature frozen” for just about “forever and a day”.)
Live Components are in “public beta”. A work in progress that is now branded as SketchUp Labs. They are not really “ready for primetime” yet as many of the “beta examples” contain errors and users cannot yet author their own LCs.
I have nothing against the SketchUp Team (and Trimble generally) developing their own native parametric features. Such features have long been a popular request by users.
Often extension developers “show the way”. ThomThom’s Solid Inspector is a good example. And yes the Weld extension(s). But these are ideas that would always be better as native features running faster as compiled native code.
Extensions developers are not under the false belief that features running in an extension will never be developed into a native feature. The API agreements have no such clause(s) limiting Trimble in this regard. We often write extensions to implement a function that would be great as a native feature, but we (the users) cannot wait and need it now.
So again we are under no illusions of a promise (nor does the Developer’s Agreement have a guarantee) that good ideas for native features can be superseded just because we are first to release an extension that does something in particular.
This also applies to Trimble itself. They are free to develop native features that are the next generation of something that is currently implemented as one of their extensions. (Be it parametric components or mesh tools, or whatever.)
Fair or unfair I do not think applies. The DC extension and Live Components are 2 separate and distinct technologies. Use of the former does not come with any “fair right” (or license) to use the latter.
The same is true for older SketchUp versions. The EULA has never had a clause that users had a right to new features in new releases without upgrading.
I did not realize this until you said it. Was there a public announcement that 2020 users could no longer participate in the beta ? … OR is it just a general requirement that participation in SketchUp Labs will be open to only to users running the latest SketchUp release ?
@Bryceosaurus ? I see in the opening post you wrote on 20 OCT 2020 …
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I haven’t seen any official announcements. Therefore, I only assume (speculate) that:
- a) Simple bug or limitation of the current interface
- b) They really pulled out the SU2020 users intentionally and forgot to talk about it
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I don’t think the change to Live Components being only available in 2021 format was intentional. Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll check with the teams. Note that lots of people are out on vacation this week so I might not have any info until next week.
My understanding was that downloaded Live Components would be in v2020 format for the near term. Eventually, they will fall under our “current minus two” policy where we support the latest version and two versions back.
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Yes this is what users would expect for released features. But LCs are a “beta thang”. I can understand if they really need the new 2021 format. But an announcement or a revision of the original introductory post would be good.
The change to 2021 format was unintentional. We’ll be reverting it back to 2020 soon.
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Hi I also have to say that I was wrong informed by my sketchup reseller that after 2020 release of sketchup I will no longer be able to upgrade classic licence to 2021 unless to subscription one. But as it turned out that was disinformation and now I am 2021 classic licence user as they sent me the upgrade.
That is the cause of my reaction to unintentional change of format. I owe my apology to sketchup team.
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Off topic now, but so that you know, your Classic support runs until the end of September. If at some point you become intrigued by a special discount for two years of subscription, you don’t need to get around to that until your current support runs out. You would still get a 60% discount at the end of September.
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… and so it has been fixed …
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They’re not working for me. When I open the Config page for a Live Component, the panel is empty:
NOTE: I’m VPNed in to a corporate network. I wonder if that’s part of the issue since this is a web control.
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See this topic thread …
No configure controls when browser Tracking Prevention is enabled
Hi Dan, Are you able to test without VPN? Is it still an issue?
Also, do you have any adblockers enabled?
Thanks!