I am a huge fan of outliner and tags. I would make the recommendation to Sketchup to find a way to combine the features of these two tools as they go hand in hand, where we can control visibly, line types, (hopefully line weights in the future), and grouping into one location within the software.
I wouldnât be a fan of combining them. I find the ability to turn visibility off in Outliner really useful when modelling but when I come to creating scenes, I prefer to use tags. I admit that is partly because I have been doing the latter for years and the Outliner option is fairly new, but still.
True however the power of outliners ability to navigate the DNA of the models nested groupings and components is much more powerful than tags. Letâs be honest, tags are layers (same as layers on AutoCAD and other CAD softwares). SketchUp outline is much more powerful than conventional layers. Maybe the compromise is to add tag features to outliner (line types, coloring and hopefully eventually line weights). This would provide users options to use one or the other or both.
I am not sure I have followed the improvement you seek.
Tags are indeed the new name for what used to be called Layers in SU. But the change of name was specifically to get away from the confusion between layers as used in most other CAD packages and layers as used in SU. There has been so much written in this forum already about the difference that I wonât go through it all again.
They are just two ways of categorizing, combining would mean you lose one way.
I prefer the Outliner to be used as âmodellerâ, while the Tags take care of the âvisualisationâ part inside SketchUp.
Both could be enhanced with stuff, the Outlinerâs filter, for instance could have more filter options, but I donât specifically want to manage visual stuff with linestyles etc. in it. Once you get the right âsetâ, you can then easily assign a Tag to it. It might even be more practical to have separate Tag panels, one for visibility and color, one for line style and weight and one for Styles.
I would like the ability to âsoloâ a tag âlayerââturn off all tags except the one Iâm selecting. I come from an audio mixing background and each channel on a mixing board (think âlayersâ or tags) have a button for mute (turn off), and another for solo (mute all other channels). Off course the âmuteâ function is the equivalent of the current eyeball dot. But the inverse would be really handy for me --perhaps through a modifier key when clicking on the eyeball dot. I use a lot of tags and the majority are usually âonâ (depending on the scene), but often I want to turn everything off except for one tag. Unless Iâm missing something, the closest thing to this is opening a component or groupâwhich is my current work around. But itâs not the same thing.
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If you want to hide/unhide multiple tags, select them together and click the eyeball.
Thanks, but thatâs really not the functionality Iâm looking for since it requires manually selecting all the tags that are on and turning them off. Am I the only one who thinks it would be fabulous to click on a single button in the tag menu and make only that tag visible?! What would be even cooler, is to have this button mapped to the up/down arrow keys so you could rapidly click down through all your tags individuallyâlike a quick slide show through each tagâif youâre looking for something or doing a quick overview.
Thanks for the demo, Box, but that is not what I am looking for. Imagine having 30 tags, 15 are on and scattered throughout the list. If I want to âsoloâ one of them. I have to drag my cursor down all 30 tags, click on one thatâs on to turn them all off, then select the one I want back on. Iâm not saying thatâs not a workaround, but itâs too cumbersome for my workflow. I also am not able to maintain my selection like you are in your demoâperhaps because Iâm on a Mac? This means that as soon as I click on the selected group, the group disappears and I canât un-click what I just did. Maybe Iâm missing a functionality or modifier key combo youâre using.
The modifier keys are shift and ctrl on windows, probably shift and command on mac.
Shift selects everything between the clicks, ctrl selects the ones you click on.
Yes, shift and cmnd on the Mac, but the selection disappears after you click the eyeball, so you canât undo what you just did with another click.
Ah well, another reason to start a mac versus win war, âŚwho said that?
Oh hang on, are you doing this in the Outliner or the Tag tray. Tags donât deselect but objects in the outliner do.
Tags. I love Macsâexcept when I hate them. My first computer was a PC, and like most people my age I spent a couple decades using both. I had both at my desk and used a KVM switch to alternate. I even programmed my keyboard to switch out the CMND and CTRL keys when switching systems. But by the late 90âs, Apple won in audio and video production and our business kissed Windows goodbye (actually, we still have one ten year-old machine running our scheduling software). It was more of a blessing not to have to keep up with two OSâs than any particular dislike of Windows. Now, Iâm an equal opportunity technology curmudgeonâmarveling at itâs genius, and swearing at itâs stupidity!
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Correction, my first computer was a Commodore 64âŚ
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I was slightly earlier, around October 1980, Apple II+. Didnât use a PC ever, and didnât use a Mac until October 1987 (when I went to work in Apple Tech Support). My first use of a Mac was when my future boss let me use a Mac Plus to type out my CV. They were hiring me because of my Apple II knowledge, which were still selling well at the time, and my future colleagues mostly knew Lisa or Mac.
I either didnât know about, or had forgotten, about toggling the selected layers or tags by clicking one eyeball. I will try to find out if it misbehaving on Mac is a known issue.
Windows has a huge chunk of both audio and video back now. Although I work with guys who use both.
Used pet computers at school before the 64 came out. And TI calculators prior to that. I still donât find
Apple OS to be friendly to the way I think.
P.S. started with punch cards and fortran. Then basic.
Agree. In Photoshop, for example, you can do this in the Layers palette with the Alt key.
Back to topic. I also donât want to combine Tag and Outliner panels. They each have their own function and in the current version they are usable well enough.
In my work, it would be much more useful to modify the Info palette so that I can not only replace the existing Tag for the element, but also create a new Tag there, instead of switching to the Tag palette every time.
Agree. Was just thinking this tonight while entering Entity Info and wanting to add a new tag, but had to switch to the Tags window to create the Tag first. Why not have the first item in the Tag dropdown menu be âCreate New Tagâ?
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