I would like to draw with a material rather than drawing in the default material and then changing it afterwards. Is that possible?
Well, I would like to draw lines in colour to be able to better differentiate them.
Also, is there a easier way to change the line colour? I find that selecting the material and then clicking on a line very difficult. Like, near impossible. I have to keep clicking and try different orientations and clicking again. It is very time consuming and frustrating. I have no problems with colouring surfaces, just lines.
You could set the color to By Axis so they will be displayed as red, green, or blue. Or you can change the color of all the edges to be something different.
No, I donât want all edges to be a colour, just the new ones I lay down. And I donât want the lines coloured by axis, though Iâm not exactly sure what that means. It only colours the lines that are aligned with the local axis, and leave everything else black? I can see that could have some use case, but itâs not mine.
When you are applying materials, watch for the circle at the end of the spilling paint from the paint bucket. Thatâs where the business end of the cursor is.
Yeah, I know, but itâs like the hot spot is 1/4 a pixel wide, or the line is. Selecting a line is nowhere near as hard. It is super annoying.
Youâve got what youâve got with SketchUp 2017 Make. Since this is just a hobby thing for you, maybe just spend some time learning to use the tools youâve got available. Itâll all come with practice.
So your saying that the latest build doesnât have this issue?
If you select the eraser tool and hold the leftmouse button, you can select edges more easily.
Before releasing the LMB, hit âBâ and then apply the color
Thanks Mike, unfortunately, it didnât seem to work. It would select it, but wouldnât apply the color. I also tried to use Color by layer, but only the faces are coloured. 
Yeah, you still need to select a color and have the edges set to âby materialâ in the style.
Itâs easier selecting, though.
Youâve got what youâve got with SketchUp 2017 Make. Since this is just a hobby thing for you, maybe just spend some time learning to use the tools youâve got available. Itâll all come with practice.
Iâm saying itâs not a problem for most users. Iâve never found it difficult to apply color to edges in my models. Iâve also never needed to apply colors to them while Iâm modeling, though. I donât have any problem working with the edges all displayed in black.
Thanks, but please donât be condescending. If you donât have a solution, then you should just continue your marry way elsewhere. Just because you are not having issues, doesnât mean that others donât, esp on a different build. Yes Iâm not a Pro user, but that doesnât mean you should act that way.
You would need to set edge color to by Material. I didnât suggest Color by Layer because ALL edges and faces should be created with Layer 0 assigned to them and should retain Layer 0. Donât start give layers to primitive geometry. Thatâs a sure way to create problems for yourself. Only give layers to groups and components.
Yes, agreed. It can cause issues.
I appreciate this community and their help. SU Make 2017 is older and free, and I donât expect that it doesnât have bugs. I am willing to live with the issues for now, and will see if I bother ponying up for a license at a later time.
Iâm sorry you took that as condescending. It wasnât meant that way at all.
Good luck.
Iâm sorry you took that as condescending. It wasnât meant that way at all.
Yeah, np. If you reread what you wrote, it can be interpreted as that Iâm just a hobbyist and I should just use what I have available and not ask questions on how to do things without RTFM (which I have).
Anyway, it is easy to mistype or misread unintentional intonations as opposed to being f2f.
Good luck.
Thanks. You too.
Hi Adrian, hi folks.
I edited a style with âEdges by materialâ. Updated the style then tried to colour some edges. No problem. If you observe carefully the Paint Bucket Tool, you will see a small circle at the tip of the paint that is pouring from the bucket. This circle is not present when the tool is hovered on empty space. It is only present when it is over some geometry that is ready to be coloured, like a face or an edge.
If you have set your mouse to move quickly, it may prove more difficult to position the bucket at the correct position. Try a slower setting. After some practice, you will probably be able to speed the mouse to your usual setting.
Two things to remember 
1 - Update the style after changing the edge colour.
2 - Make sure that the geometry to be painted is under the tiny circle at the tip of the Paint Bucket Tool.
BTW, I did my test with SketchUp (SU) 2021 and I checked that SU 2018 behave similarly. I am pretty sure that 2017 Make will behave the same also. This has been part of SU since the beginning.
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Hi Jean. Thanks, but when I have anything behind the line, it gets painted. Even when it doesnât paint the background, it still doesnât colour the line most of the time. Actually, Iâm not exactly sure how I got some lines to colour, because I canât seem to get it to colour anymore.
Iâve attached a vid to that Iâm not crazy. 
See this SU file.
Have you Edited the Style to specify âBy Materialâ and have you Updated the Style by clicking on the two circular arrows?
You need to do that before painting lines. You do it once. Maybe you can save a Template containing this style.
Maybe your screen resolution is just to high. Making everything tiny.
Doh! I had done that and that is when it did work. However, Iâve not used Scenes that much and didnât realize that it can revert this setting.
Thx for your help Jean.
Cheers
Yes, Scenes are a good way to memorize settings and allow for quick changes but, as you discovered, they can cause surprises.
I am glad that you got it. Keep up modelling.
You can also paint multiple selected objects at once with the Entity Info palette. Your choices are limited if both edges and faces are selected, in which case you color edges and front faces and canât even see backface colors. If you use Selection Toys with it, however, it becomes much more useful. Make a selection of just edges and you can color the lot of them in one click without changing faces. By the same token, select only faces, and you see both swatches for front and backface and can color each of those for everything in the selection at once.