TABS in Sketchup 2021 Mac not working properly

Marlan · February 23, 2021, 10:42pm

Continuing the discussion from About the SketchUp category:

It has become almost impossible to switch tabs cleanly in Sketchup 2021 Mac. When you select a tab, the new drawing half loads and switches back to original tab. It will not stay on the tab that you choose unless you keep your mouse perfectly still for many seconds after the sluggish switch is completed… and even then it probably won’t work.

This problem started in SU2020. This would drive anyone nuts. Most unprofessional come presentation time.

monospaced · February 23, 2021, 10:47pm

Are you referring to switching scenes by clicking on the tabs at the top of the modeling window? If this is sluggish it could be due to your machine being bogged down by the model. Hard to say without knowing exactly what you’re seeing or how your model is set up.

colin · February 23, 2021, 11:02pm

If you mean the macOS Show Tab Bar feature, I think that macOS shuts down the content, in a similar way to how it would when you minimize to the Dock. It takes a lot longer to reload a tab or maximize from the Dock than it does to switch windows.

I tried just now, with one demanding model and several other less demanding tabs, and just once it seemed to prefer the tab I was coming from. After that it behaved itself, other than the couple of seconds to reload the document.

I will try with several demanding models as tabs, and see what happened then.

Please let us know if what you’re describing is the thing I have talked about.

Marlan · February 23, 2021, 11:18pm

Yes, that is what I am referring to. I have several tabs open at any time and at least 5GB or RAM leftover on a fairly well-endowed IMAC so I do not why it wants to just back to the tab I am coming from.

Marlan · February 23, 2021, 11:29pm

Yes that is what I am referring to. I have several tabs open at any time and at least 5GB or RAM leftover on a fairly well endowed IMAC so I do not why it wants to just back to the tab I am coming from.
I just tested what you seem to be suggesting to switch btw full open windows instead of tabs. The result is the same but worse, it makes the ball spin and the screen switches several times from one open sketchup window to the next, back and forth wasting time.

monospaced · February 23, 2021, 11:55pm

You aren’t referring to scenes then. Must be something else. Chances are your model is slowing down your Mac. Can’t really say unless we have a better sense of what you are doing and how complex the models are. Yosemite is a very very old operating system and that is likely an older iMac.

colin · February 24, 2021, 12:45am

The tabs feature is very neat, and when it first appeared I tried it on SketchUp right away. SketchUp doesn’t do anything extra to support the tabs, whether they work is entirely down to macOS. I think thought that the tabs are suspended when not visible, and it would take a lot of time to reload the newly visible tab and to suspend the one that was there a moment ago.

Another way to switch between tabs is Command - Shift - Backslash (the forum won’t let me type a backslash character), and then click on the document you want to work on. When you do it that way you can see how long it takes for the toolbar to refresh, and on complex documents it can take a few seconds.

monospaced · February 24, 2021, 2:12am

Ok, I don’t have Big Sur, and I can’t find anything about this feature anywhere when searching for tabs. What is it? Can you provide a link?

colin · February 24, 2021, 4:48am

The tabs were introduced with Mojave I believe. This Apple article lets you choose which system you have, to see the right screenshots for the feature:

In SketchUp you would choose View, Show Tab Bar, then click the + button to add a new document as a tab. Or you can drag existing documents together by dragging one window’s tab area onto another window’s tab area.