Hi!
What would you guys think about a plugin that would extend “Hide rest of model” setting? Precisely: you could show only direct “parent” of active component, so only the component nesting the active one, and hide rest of model at the same time. This would let you focus on your active component, while only the nearest context is displayed, not entire model.
It could be helpful with complex models where groups are nested inside grouped groups 
Exactly, and often it is useful to have some context surounding the edited component, but showing the complete rest of the model has poor performance or has an object in front of the camera that occludes your view.
Hiding the rest of the model is not extensible (apart from configuring opacity as in the GUI). Plugins cannot change how Sketchup renders the view (like prevent SketchUp from rendering something), only interactive tools can render temporarily on top of the view. Plugins could set entities to hidden (which modifies not only the view, but the model and the undo history), but you cannot have a parent visible and the parent’s parent hidden.
You can always also use temporary section planes to partially hide the rest of the model.
As Aerilius said this cannot be done by a plugin. I would recommend to save out the top level component you want visible to ane external file for editing. That would also increase performance, and prevent clipping and some other camera issues.
It’s a pity but I see the case. Thanks 4 explantion 
Here’s what I do.
I have a scene where all my main groups (each of which resides on its own layer) are not visible. It’s called GPOFF. I have a short cut for cut and one for paste in place. When my model starts to get complicated I open the group select the stuff I need for context and cut it. Close the group and paste in place. Now that stuff is the only objects that show up in my scene. I do my edits and then cut it and paste it back to the appropriate group.
This may seem like a lot but it happens very quickly in real time. Also if I need more context I can turn on the group containing the context but still be editing outside it. I find it liberating to be able to focus on a small group of objects.
I really like the analogy of groups as containers. And I’ve gotten comfortable moving things in and out of them.
Right, this is some workaround.