Drowning in toolbars. I need a bunch of different extensions to handle various aspects of interior design, custom furniture modeling, material estimates, and other things, but it’s (1) visually overwhelming and (2) making Sketchup start much slower.
Is there a way to start it in a minimal configuration and IF I need a particular extension, enable it on the fly? Without having to reload the whole thing?
Or at the very least, anyone aware of an extension (ha, ironic) that will let me enable/disable toolbars in groups, like “I only need these 70 things for furniture”, “I only need these 20 things for curved surface modeling”, etc?
You can disabled them in Extension Manager or in the Sketchucation Extension Store tool and then enable them when needed. If you use the Extension Manager remember to disable them again so they don’t load the next time you open SketchUP. In the Sketchucation Extension Store you can load extensions just for the current session and they won’t load the next time you start SketchUp.
Is there like a “best practices” guide that has all these tips to help someone use Sketchup to its maximum potential right from the start, without having multiple “hmm, there has got to be an easier way” moments?
I don’t know of a specific guide. There are a lot of different “best” ways to work in SketchUp but which one is best for you is kind of up to you to work out. I could give you my list of best practices but as soon as I did someone would come along with what would look like a contradictory list of their best practices.
Is there a difference between having an extension unloaded in the extension manager and having it unchecked when right clicking the top area of SKP where the toolbars go?
Yes. In the latter case the extension loads when SketchUp starts but the toolbar may or may not be displayed. You still have to wait for the extension to load. If the extensions are set to not load on startup, the startup can be faster. Maybe the OP does just not want to display all of the toolbars. I have a lot of extensions that load but I choose to only display their toolbars when I need them.
Same. I have a ton of extensions but only a few viewable on startup. I also get a weird crash when closing sketchup most of the time - and likely from an extension. Maybe I’ll …actually… unload some of the them then.
The SketcUcation tool also has the ability to create ‘Sets’ of plugins. So you can choose a set for Architecture or Landscaping or Product design and so on and it will load the set you have chosen.
