Sketchup Pro 2020 Tagging frustration

Sorry…the disease is spreading…Ha…sorry…sorry for laughing.

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Ha, the grumpy is catching. Looks like the feature I was bemoaning may not have been removed after all.

It’s a plush of the Mac interface that we can enter new text into entity info to make new tags.

I’m on my phone now but I’ll show you my Sketchup screen setup later. I keep toolbars on the left and windows on the right.

I honestly did not know that was a Mac only thing! I love how that works!

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I don’t understand why so many people are complaining about the mac interface. I personally love the mac interface more then the one on windows. Every time when I work on windows (only for presenting my models with Enscape) I get frustrating about the interface on Windows.

I love the way tags works on mac, I love how pdf is integrated in sketchup and layout on mac, I love the material browser on mac. The things I miss on mac is how toolbars work on windows and a better pannel management, please not like on windows, but more something like ‘Arrage Tools’ like in Layout.

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I like the Mac interface too, mostly. I wish material browser could show split folders simultaneously like on windows, it’s much easier to manage custom material folders with that setup, and I wish I could list materials by name.

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if only we could get a color palette in SketchUp, like in LayOut:


I would give up my left pinky…

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I have a vague recollection that when they originally built the SketchUp Materials editor by customizing the macOS Color Picker, they removed the Color Palettes icon to make room for the “brick” icon. I don’t know why that was deemed necessary - as your screenshot shows, there seems to be room at the right. It has been that way for a very long time. I also vaguely recall that someone (@driven?) hacked the .nib file to put that icon back, but I can’t find that discussion again.

Evidently LayOut uses the unmodified Color Picker from macOS.

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I miss John…

I might start a new topic, just because…

Thank you for the insights @slbaumgartner, and yours, @KeithBrooks!
Interesting speculation … Trimble (Thus SketchUp) might …“have very limited Mac developer resources”.
First, this might explain the (performance) trouble some (many?) of us Mac users have had (for some time) with LayOut in general…
Second, now that Apple is moving to their own (M1+) chip base, CAN we expect any better attention from the Trimble/SketchUp code jocks in terms of complete, un-compromised operability of the product (particularly LayOut)?
Are Mac users now going to get equal attention (in terms of product development) compared to (the larger user base of) Windows users?
Let’s hope so … (But maybe I should say … Let’s demand so …?!)

I was wondering about this very thing. Even thought about starting a new topic for it. I can’t help but believe that this might well cause a transition from PC to Apple because of the speed boost (maybe not first year, but certainly in the next 2-3 years after they work some of the issues). If that is the case…I’m wonder the same thing, will development dollars start moving to other side of the room or at least to the center?

Would love to know what the big brain people are hearing about this and it will affect both Sketchup and Layout.

Good thought @Beamer2!!

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I’ve done this so many times (on my Mac) that now I often just have layers (excuse me, ‘tags’) in my model named “o” and " " (space). :slight_smile:
Every so often, such as near the end of a work session or before a break, I turn off all the other tags to see what’s ended up there, and move them to the correct tag.

What I have found, having used SU since 2003 on a Mac, is one needs to hit the ‘Enter’ key and it takes your input, ignoring your next click or subsequent key strokes.

This is a ‘feature’ of the MacOS interface for dialogue boxes.

Leaving a dialog in an ‘open’ state allows your next input to override your initial input.

Yes it sucks. Yes it is frustrating. I don’t know that they can fix this given it is a base feature of the OS.

I do this all the time - name a tag, switch back to the workspace and type an ‘o’ for the Orbit tool and sometime later discover I have renamed the tag as ‘o’.

Try to get into the habit of:

  1. Name the tase
  2. Click TWICE in the workspace window
  3. THEN use a shortcut key for the tool you want to use
  4. Learn to accept the pain
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I think you have the answer

“4. Learn to accept the pain.”

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