Hello.
Is it possible to locate och open shortcut files of components from the Component Explorer in the Tray?
If i go trough File/import/ - I can see all types och fileextensions, even the shortcuts.
I want to have all my components in one big directory, and use shortcuts to other directories to categories of components, but i want the possibility to update the file in the big directory, and have the categorized components updated…
I’m also a bit confused here. Do you mean you want to press some key combination to place a specific component? Like Ctrl+T+B places a certain telephone booth from your directory?
okay, sorry if I’m unclear. I mean windows shortcuts of files. to link a shortcut to a main file in another folder. If I have a folder A with all my components, regardless of category. In Folder B I have everything that may be needed for bathrooms, in folder c, everything that may be needed for kitchens etc. Then I want shortcuts from specific components in Folder A, even in Folder B, but at the same time have connection from Folder C to the same component. So when I change component “3” in folder A, I have updated component “3” in folder B & C because they link to folder A. Do you understand better? It has nothing to do with Sketchup shortcuts, but component explorer tray does not find .lnk files. Only if I choose File / Import / Folder Thank you for your time.
I think you need to check out hard and symbolic links created using the mklink command. From a quick web search, .lnk files are for executables not ordinary files or folders.
For education: “links” are special directory entries that make a single file appear to be present in more than one folder. “Symbolic” or “soft” links contain the path string to the folder location that actually owns the file. “Hard” links contain a handle to the physical location of the file on the disk; the file is literally owned by entries in two folders. Both cause any reference to the file to go transparently to the same place.
Very few programs support windows links. As Steve says I think symlinks is the way to go. Simply put it’s a way to pretend the target file or folder resides where the link is.
I don’t know any. Windows links are (seem to be) meant to be clicked on. Otherwise they are tiny files without any function.
This property of symlinks is called “file system transparency”. When querying the file system (a folder/file path), symbolic links are transparently resolved as if the given file path would point to the link target, not the source. The application which queries the file path does not (need to) know that there are links.
You describe a detailed prospective implementation of a solution to your workflow problem. Apparently the implementation of SketchUp and Windows does not work that way as you hoped (although the very closest solution is to switch from click-only .lnk files to real symbolic links). If you describe the abstract problem that you are trying to solve, people can come up with more suggestions.
As I understand you want to realize multiple hierarchies to organize and access the same files. It sounds to me like you tried to implement “tags” using a file/folder hierarchy (and multiple links pointing to the same files).
Would it help if SketchUp supported “tags” on component .skp files? These could be considered when searching the component browser (but Windows file dialogs would not understand them). Wait, doesn’t SketchUp already have tags?
Also most operating systems (I believe including Windows) support file tags either as EXIF/XMP attributes of media files or as an overlay file system. Would it help to use file tags? These can be searched and filtered in Explorer or in the file open dialogs.