Not yet, but it’s been requested before.
Just to understand what kind of functions you’d like in an always on top panel. Are there certain tools you’d want to have always available rather than hidden?
Hi @DougO . Two things to report on Mac…
If you show the shy ghost because apparently the GhostMenu app isn’t open, including a message that suggests they open the app could be good.
While the ghost man window is showing, whether it’s because of having not opened the app before SketchUp or not, the selecting of tools doesn’t work. Closing ghost man window solves that.
My primary interest would be in the drawing tools.
On a side note, when I close SU and open a new session the shy ghost pops up in the corner of the screen but is blank. To get the extension working again I must double click on the desktop icon which in turn opens another instance of SU. Also the lower left icon in the center panel appears to minimize the view but does nothing else? To re-initialize is to use control+space.
Doug, just followed the install instructions, and had no problem.
Restarted SketchUp and CTRL+Spacebar opens the GhostMenu.
I’m on Win10 with the recent .NET updates done yesterday.
(But there is another pending .NET update today that I haven’t done yet.)
I note this because I wonder if there is .NET or VC runtime library version dependencies for GhostMenu ?
I see the same issue (reported above) where the GhostMenu is opening on top of Chrome on my external display when Chrome is application with focus. It opens on top of my code editor when it has focus.
However, any ghost choice is applied to the unfocused SketchUp process.
RLGL.
Can you at some convenient point take a screenshot of what the blank newly launched Sketchup looks like?
In theory the ghostmenu app can be left on in the background and never closed ( a bit like google drive, or adobe cloud ). So any new Sketchup launch will just work with the popups menu.
Was the new instance of Sketchup launching when ghostmenu launches annoying? Or just a surprise?
Hi Dan, yes this sounds right.
GhostMenu is a seperate application that communicates with SketchUp. So it is expected to open outside the boundaries of SketchUp’s frame. But inside the monitor that your mouse was on when it was launched.
So in theory it’ll launch or stack on top of anything. But will send commands to the most recently used SketchUp model. (Supports multiple SketchUp instances too)
I don’t believe there are any .net or vc libraries that it’s dependant on. It’s an Electron app, which is a standalone browser technology, so I believe is quite independent.
Colin, did you see the grey coloured ghost on launch?
Is this dialogue the one you think should have more instructions?
I’ve been curious about a first launch page which shows and contains instructions up until the users gets an active connection then never shows again… would that be the solution perhaps?
I intentionally didn’t open the app first, and saw this window.
Then I opened the app and clicked the Reconnect button, and he changed to this:
At that point I can Ctrl-space to see the array of tools, the help rollover text appears, button clicking just puts to tools away. It doesn’t select the tool I clicked on.
Closing the Shy Ghost window fixes things.
Hmmm ok thanks. I’ll look into the not selecting the tool clicked thing.
I think it might be because SketchUp model window wasn’t the last window in focus. This seemed to be a real thing on Mac version of SketchUp. I don’t know a solution for it, as it seems to be in deep down behaviour maybe due to multiple active models so it can get into a state where there is no active model?
I might set up a system where it auto reconnects / think about it some more.
You have no issues if the model window was focused though right?
Your window being the top window is the issue. If I close that window, or click to bring the model window forward, the tool selection works. While your window is foreground, even keyboard shortcuts fail.
Does that window have a function?
Something that is majorly distracting is that all other windows are hidden while the overlay is showing.
Yeah, the shy ghost window is the only way to send commands to SketchUp asynchronously unfortunately, it can’t be done in any other way. It’s much less smooth / slick in Mac than it is in Windows due to the UI technology being used.
Things like toolbars and UI disappearing in Mac is also something inherent about how SketchUp works on Mac. I guess it’s more of an issue when there are lots of toolbars and windows open… so perhaps I just need to replace them all haha. Great idea!
Thanks for the feedback Colin.
Totally unwanted. This should not happen unless there is no current SketchUp process running.
Also, users will want to have the ability to switch this feature off.
Uh … testing. If I have GM unloaded. A already have a SketchUp instance open. If I start GM, it wants to start a new instance of SU.
If I cancel the load from the Welcome screen, GM does not work.
If I allow the new instance of SU to load, GM only works with the new instance and not the previously opened one.
Multi-SketchUp support is a good thing.
I’d prefer that the shortcut only work when one of the SketchUp instances has focus, and that it only overlay that particular instance of SketchUp.
I see no reason for it to be opening on a display that I don’t use SketchUp on.
Perhaps add a registered command on the menu (inside SketchUp,) so that users can assign their preferred shortcut that would only work from a focused SketchUp instance ?
I might like to have the GM popup appear on a fast double left-mouse click. … or maybe CTRL+LMB, but I guess SketchUp would have to natively support shortcuts assigned to “mouse chords”.
It’s a general Mac thing, that when switching to a different application, the palettes of the background applications are hidden.
The ghost window seems to work even if it’s closed, so long as the app is open, that works around the tool selection and keyboard shortcut issues.
Yeah I think I’m going to add this. I believe it’ll address Paul’s issues about keyboard shortcuts too.
I think I’ll keep it a global shortcut for default installs, but in the preferences of GM I’ll let the user opt for SketchUp defined shortcuts instead which are managed in the SketchUp preferences. This’ll cover a few scenarios that people are describing, such as it being able to do a few more checks around whether things are working correctly etc… It just requires a couple more bits of setup from the user to opt into, but might be worth it.
Cheers.
1 Like
If that’s the case… then I’m quite happy. I’ll test it here to confirm. I always assumed closing it would stop the callbacks working.
I double checked. The tools overlay hangs out all the time, at their last used location, though possibly obscured by the SketchUp window.
Sorry for the delay, no power and storm cleanup.
Summary
A newly launched SU window while loading has the shy ghost on top but blank. If I minimize the window the shy ghost is on the desktop with a reconnect message box that does nothing. Starting the app from the desktop produces another instance of SU with the app working and the icon is in the system tray. The app will work in both instances. Closing both instances of SU leaves the app visible on the desktop. The only way to close it is via the system tray icon. Removing the app and the .rbz leaves the GM icon on the desktop. A computer restart clears it. The reinstall of the app and .rbz produced the opening of the app with the drawing menu immediately open on the desktop. The app functioned in SU. Upon closing SU the menu was left on the desktop. The only way to close it was via the tray icon. Having a SU window open from the app icon on the desktop is an annoyance.
A bit undesirable… I want it haunting SU not your computer.
I think I have some fixes for this. But will test them a bit more before uploading.
Ok Thanks for the feedback everyone,
I’ve updated to 1.0.3 Anyone still using this will get a notification to upgrade.
But if you’re new to it, Go to http://ghost.menu and grab it.
The major changes below are thanks to some great feedback, especially about how much of a faff around some things were, as well as Dan’s excellent input for some Ruby things.
Changes
- Ability to define a custom Keyboard Shortcut, This also fixes issues where the global default doesn’t work out of the box
- You now merely need to install both the RBZ into SketchUp, and the application. Everything else will auto connect, and it will work without you thinking about it.
- I removed the desktop shortcuts, as you nolonger ever need to run GhostMenu manually
- If for some reason things stop working (normally if GhostMenu was closed manually), there is a ‘Make it work’ button which will just make everything work again.
@PaulMcAlenan I think this will solve your issues, it will require the extension and app be uninstalled / reinstalled and you will be able to set up a keyboard shortcut via SketchUp’s preferences
@colin Thanks for pointing out that closing the dialog on Mac leaves it all still functioning… This is amazing. Very helpful for me actually. Thanks for putting that bug in there for me. 
Did I say how Slick 1.0.3 is?
I think you should get it, and try it!