Scale Input

Well, of course, being in the UK, we now use metric scales. I certainly don’t use the kind of scales that Layout uses when it first imports a SU drawing. As you say, that’s a bit berserk. But I do sometimes use non-standard scales like 1:25, basically for when what I would normally have at 1:20 is just a bit too big for the page. So if you don’t already have that in your default list, being able to write it in can be useful (or quicker than editing the defaults). I am slightly playing Devil’s advocate here because I agree that the current system is a little weird. But it is better (IMHO) than what went before.

I’m quite confused by this post. If you never use scales, then a scale input not working as expected shouldn’t be an issue, because you never use it.

You should be able to either type a scale or select one from the list. One shouldn’t in any way exclude the other. Personally I don’t think I’ve used the scale list a single time since I was able to just type “1:100” or whatever scale I want.

Am I understanding this correctly that there is a recent regression that has prevented picking a scale from the list? What LayOut version and operative system is being used?

Thanks for scraping the main important issue of my post and focusing on what I said about “who uses irregular scales anyway?”

I don’t know the name of the current version, but in the following version I want you to give me an option in the settings preferences to be able to have:

  1. enable or disable the ability to write a custom scale right off of the pre-set scale menu in LayOut.

  2. enable or disable the ability to Tag selections using the Entry Info.

Thanks!

If there is a bug that makes the dropdown not work in certain situations, that bug itself needs to be fixed. Having an option to hide the bug isn’t the right solution.

You can see the version if you go to Help > About Layout.

2021-10-21_15h03_56

Alright, the version is 21.1.278.

Here’s a video of the issue… Dropbox - Video Oct 21, 7 13 47 AM.mov - Simplify your life

But still, please work on the option I’ve suggested. It’s fair and I’m sure many will appreciate to have that option.

The video is not clear, instead use a screen capture app like LiceCap. It is FREE!

or check these ones in the other thread:

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If the bug is tracked down and fixed, is there any other reason to disable the keyboard input? I don’t see how that would get in the way if you chose not to use it.

I typically rely on standard scales that already come with the LayOut. Most architects also rely on these standards, and that is why I’m suggesting to give an option in the settings to enable and disable the keyboard input.

I want to see this option in the SketchUp app as well—that is, I want to have an option to enable/disable keyboard input in the Entry Info, where I can write the Tag name to automatically add it in the Tags list. I know you’ve disabled this option, because some users were accidentally tagging a selection to something else, but it would be really nice to have the choice to Tag my selections right off of the Entry Info dialog, because it’s so much quicker and easier for me.

I agree most people use the same small set of scale most of the time, but I still don’t follow what the problem is with entering freely. The list hasn’t been removed. I don’t understand what benefit there is to not being able to type “1:100” in addition to picking “1:100” in the list.

There were two reasons for this change. Partly it was because people accidentally typed in names for new tags when intending to activate shortcuts. That could perhaps also have been addressed by changing where the application focus is. However, this behavior only existed on Mac and I think the reasoning was that it wasn’t intentional, but related to the UI framework. I’m not sure of these details though as I didn’t work on this myself.

The reason why I don’t like the keyboard input for scale is that when I click on the drop down menu, it doesn’t expand the list of scales. So I have to move the mouse and click on the arrow down to show the list.

In the Styles dialog, under Styles, you have the same drop down arrow, but when you click anywhere on that input, say “Default Styles” it drops down the list of styles. This is how most of drop down in daily used apps are and this is how my muscle memory is used to.

I’m not used to clicking specifically on an arrow down button. I like to click anywhere within that area and see the list.

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I’m struggling to reproduce this bug. Could you make a screen recording where it is visible what you pick in the dropdown and what the result on the viewport is?

Are you seeing this with specific models or generally?

Mac only, probably

I’ve tried on Mac too and whatever I select from the dropdown is the scale that gets applied to the viewport.

For the record, having to press the arrow to show the dropdown is how LayOut has always worked on Windows. On Windows, the scale field was a text field even before parsing the text input was added as a feature. Prior to this, you could type but when you pressed Enter you just got an angry ding sound back. Only on the Mac version were you able to click anywhere on the field to expand the list.

Does it works with the file that’s posted in this post?

here’s a screen recording where I make a new model in sketchup and then work on it in layout.

you can see the issues there.

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I notice something that Mike Wayzovski and I have posted — that is, in our LayOut screenshot recording we both have a custom scale in the list of scales. In my case it’s 3”:1’ and in the other screen I noticed 1”:88

Could that be the cause?

Thanks for the recording!

Am I understanding correctly that this only happens after you enter the viewport and use Zoom Extents?

You’re welcome, Christine.

It happens with or without the Zoom Extents.

Logged internally as LO-14092.

Thanks