I got a new computer!
It’s:
- i7 Intel 4790
- AMD RADEON R7 370 (4GB)
- 32GB DDR3 RAM
- 250GB SSD
- 2TB HDD
I can render stuff now! I think!
I am excited.
Congratulations.
It would have been better to get an nVidia GeForce card instead of the AMD Radeon but you should probably have fun anyway.
Yeah I know…but still.
Y’know that bridge model I did earlier in the year? I did that thing on a vastly inferior laptop from like 11 years ago.
Well, I hope it doesn’t give you problems. Have you read through the threads here regarding AMD Radeon cards?
I know, I know.
I rolled the dice and went with it.
If push comes to shove, I get an nVidia card to be best buds with my AMD.
Hey, I am trying to re-install an extension I had on the other system, called midpoint.rb…
I can’t seem to find the Plugins folder to drop it into, is there another folder I’m supposed to use?
The Plugins folder should be under User/App Data/Roaming… but the App Data directory is normally hidden so you’ll have to make it unhidden to drop the plugin in directly. A better option would be to add midpoint.rb to a zip file, rename it from .zip to .rbz and then use Install Extension from Window>Preferences>Extensions.
So…
I have:
E:>Program Files>SketchUp>Sketchup 2016
I’m not sure where this App Data directory would be?
Program files should be on the C: drive.
As I said, App Data will be under User–that is, your user name. DO NOT add any files to SketchUp’s program folders.
Heya, I figured it out - with your help of course!
Thanks so much dude.
MikeO.
I quite agree that:
“C:/Users/User/AppData/Roaming/SketchUp/SketchUp 2016/SketchUp/Plugins/****.rb”
and
“C:\ProgramData\SketchUp\SketchUp 2016” (which some versions/extensions have used) are LAME at best, and a PITA. But then M$ has been shooting us in the foot for decades at this point…
I keep all of my plugins in “C:\Program Files\SketchUp\SU Plugins” with nothing ever ‘hidden’ and nothing ‘protected’…
It’s VERY easy and useable with:
Fredo6: Additional Plugin Folders SketchUp Plugins | PluginStore | SketchUcation
and the “sketchucation extensions manager” Plugin Store Download | SketchUcation
Then you can quickly inspect and review, load and unload with a click, and drag and drop new or test rb’s, all always backed up, and nothing ever ‘lost’… It takes a few minutes to setup, but totally worth it…
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This is poor practice. To do this the user must first relax the permissions to the folder. If there’s ever a need to reinstall or repair the SketchUp installation, that Plugins folder will be overwritten and you’ll lose the plugins you installed in it.
The intended location for user-installed plugins and extensions is under User/App Data/Roaming/SketchUp/SketchUp 2016/SketchUp/Plugins. This folder will not be overwritten during reinstallation or repair. For most users, there is never a need to access that folder directly. Extensions and plugins installed by the Extension Warehouse, Install Extension, and the Sketchucation Plugin Store will all wind up in the User/App Data/…/SketchUp/Plugins folder.
If Mike followed my advice to install the plugin in question, it will have been installed in the correct location.
I am NOT at all sure I agree. (If you are managing a group of newbies and have allowed yourself to become responsible for their stupidity and inexperience, MAYBE) Hidden files and ‘protected’ files are just another way to shoot yourself in the foot. I am the administrator of my machine, NOT Microsoft. and it will always remain so.
Perhaps it isn’t so, but I assumed the folks here, reading this forum, are intelligent enough to think for themselves, make life easier for themselves, and manage their own machine and data…
About 90% of the errors I EVER see on a new installation or new machine these days are over permissions that NEVER should have been set in the first place. But, I still remember and long for the days of four simple attributes on a file, batch files for scripting, and .ini files for setup. “Protecting” home users as though they were on a network with an administrator is just ridiculous…
P.S. My plugins folder will NEVER be overwritten. It’s why they invented backups. If your will be, you aren’t following good practices…
Mine won’t be overwritten either. I do create backups but I’m using the intended folders for files I add to SketchUp.
And this is why YOU have access to the %ProgramFiles% folder hierarchy. Standard User accounts on MS Windows DO NOT have access to %ProgramFiles% and limited access to the %ProgramData% hieracrhy.
These two folder locations have always been intended to be accessed only by installers with administrative privileges and by the programs themselves. It was this way as far back as Windows 3.0 (perhaps earlier) and the user data was kept separate in the user profile folder hierarchy, although the folder names have changed over the versions. (The “Users” folder used to be called “Documents and Settings” and before that “Profiles”.)
Further more, in business or educational settings, the normal users (who will NOT be administrators) will not be able to even browse to these restricted locations. The software itself will be installed by system administrators.
The days of full system access ended with Windows XP, and the introduction of User Account Control for Windows version 6 (Vista) and higher.
There are easy ways to access these locations, for example by:
-
creating a “Library” location in Windows Vista or 7.
-
Or a desktop shortcut.
-
Or as a named share.
-
A symbolic link.
etc.
I believe that neither of the authors of these two extensions would suggest putting extensions in the location you are promoting.
But let us ask @TIG, the author the SketchUcation PluginStore extension.
Both I think would expect you to be pointing at another drive or somewhere below the “%UserProfile%/Documents” folder.
Do you realize just how ridiculous this sounds to an IT guy, with 35 years experience building, programming and maintaining computers in general; and a user and maintainer of Windows systems since version 1.0 ?
Guys stop arguing. ;/
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Thanks, Dan, for the input. 
I am well aware of what you say. Although I’ve done LOTS of other things, my livelihood for about twenty years was as the network admin and local computer ‘guy’. I was the installer, trainer, and support guy for many groups at many sites on many many projects. In fact, I sold CP/M machines before the IBM PC and Windows was introduced. Microsoft has routinely made me glad those days of supporting them are over…
B.T.W., Win 3.0 did not have ‘profiles’. Back then, I routinely reformated the hard drive on new machines, and created a “D:” drive for the user’s data and reinstalled a somewhat minimal copy of win on C: that then stayed mostly “Clean”. Profiles as you know them didn’t happen till the Win 95/98 era and was an option in the control panel that had to be turned ‘ON’ - it was “off” by default…
I didn’t mean to step on anyone’s toes here - just thought the two tools I’ve found useful to manage my plugins might be helpful to someone who wasn’t familiar with them…
We are not! We’re bickering. 
I’m including Windows NT 3.x which I also maintained back then. (It all ended up being NT for XP and later anyway.)
We don’t have an issue with the tools, … we take issue with your suggestion of plugin location.
In this day when many computer users barely know how to create a folder … or much less how to install software, having them save or access anything outside the User Documents hierarchy is asking for trouble.
Okay, so you have as much if not more experience as I in IT. Well that just makes me more flabbergasted that you would suggest installing extensions (application data) in locations contrary to what the OS manufacturer (Microsoft) and the application developer (Trimble) want.
Users are also supposed to not need to worry about or manually access any of the %AppData%. (The applications are supposed to do all access transparently.)
For SketchUp, this is why the RBZ archive was invented, along with the “Install Extension…” button in SU8M2.
And since, SketchUp has the Extension Warehouse and SketchUcation PluginStore that install extensions transparently.
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Duly Noted. Perhaps I give the current crop of users here too much credit. Dunno.
As you might be able to imagine, MicroSoft never really gave me too much an excuse to respect them - the bad designs, flaws, and service pacs just never ever stopped. And once NT ‘roaming’ profiles came with update failures and users that really did move from one machine to another, I had to solved the problem with a NON-Microsoft profile area (and a small amount of training) that gave users full control and responsibility for their data. No more update issues or waiting on a service pak to fix the issues. No more ‘lost data’ and updates. I still keep my info WHERE I CAN FIND IT EASILY and out of M$ folders whenever possible.
And IMHO, Hiding data in hidden folders has simply NEVER been a good idea, and while controlling and limiting permissions has a place in some corporate environments, it has never been a good idea for single non-networked machines. Try as you might, you simply can’t make the system ‘think’ for the user. If you are smart enough to use a piece of software like ‘Make’ or ‘Pro’ and design in 3d, you should be smart enough to think for yourself, be responsible for your own data, and not expect the machine to magically think for you. At least, In My Humble Opinion…
Yes it’s supposed to… but how is that really working?
I’m not adovating anyone do anything, nor telling them what to do. I tried to fix stupid and to be responsible for things that were impossible for too many years. I’m just sharing what I do and why…
Keeping it Simple, Easy, and Obvious works for me.