Tag Folders and Tag names

New to SU2021 and the use of tags.
I am understanding how tags can be beneficial to lessen the amount of scenes that need to be created when i transfer over to Layout.

However, when I create a Tag Folder and then tags within that folder I had expected those names to become discrete like a windows folder tree. Am I missing something?

My workaround is to of course just have discrete names for everything. It would be great if tag folders worked like Windows folders so I would not have to keep making up new names for what are the same type of object but in a different location.

Also, when I go to the Entity info in the tray and want to apply a tag to an object it would be great to have that folder tree show up instead of just a list of tags.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice.

Alan

You should be able to see those tag folders with the tags inside them. It should look something like this:
Screenshot - 1_17_2021 , 2_11_58 PM

And in LayOut, the Tags should look similar when you have the viewport selected.

Iā€™m not sure what the problem is. You can give a tag to any components or groups in thee model and you can collect the tags into folders in whatever way is logical.

(One thing to make sure of is that you are leaving Untagged as active and ALL raw geometry remains untagged.)

I suppose it could be handy but you canā€™t give a tag folder to an object so adding tag folders might just be seen as clutter.

Thanks for the response DaveR.

That screen shot is helpful becuase in it all tags are esentially discrete.
What I was trying to do was, using the screen shot as an example, have a tag called ā€œStudsā€ in both Tage folders called ā€œWall Elementsā€ and say ā€œFoundation Elementsā€.

In my model I was working in SU was not allowing me to do that saying the tag names needed to be discrete.
If they are under different parent folders wouldnā€™t they be discrete?

And so when the fly down occurs in the Entity Info Tray the lack of tag folders makes things extra messy.

On the other hand, tags without their folder context could be confusing

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That would require two separate tags, then. But an object can only have one tag.

Yes they do to prevent confusion.

Currently, no.

It certainly would if you have multiple tags with the same name which you canā€™t.

I Should have been more clear hereā€¦it would be different components with the same tag name under different tag folders.
egā€¦I would want ā€œcomponent Aā€ to have the tag ā€œStudsā€ under the tag folder ā€œWall Elementsā€ and a different component, ā€œcomponent Bā€ to have the tag ā€œStudsā€ under tag folder ā€œFoundation Elementsā€

SU disallows this saying that the tag names are not discrete.

You would need to have ā€œcomponent Aā€ tagged as Studs, Wall Elements and ā€œcomponent Bā€ tagged as Studs, Foundation Elements. Two different tag names.

This is the first version of SketchUp to include tag folders. It maybe that it will evolve some but the immediate solution is to use different tag names for the different studs.

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Exactly. Currently they need to have discrete names no matter the folder they are under. Hopefully that can be a fix in later releases.
I was just not sure if I was missing something or not since I just upgraded from 2017 and tage names are new to me.

Really appreciate the chat! Thanks!

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If you combine the Visibility Tags with nesting objects, you can have some sort of folder structure and use a tag more than once.
Studs are most likely part of a wall thatā€™s maybe on a certain level. So if you nest the studs (group them in a wall component or group and tag that object with the Tag ā€˜Wallsā€™) and add another level of nesting with ā€˜Level 0ā€™ or ā€˜Level 1ā€™ , the studs on that level could all be tagged as ā€˜Studā€™, and yet you can choose to show only studs on Level 1 or all the studs in the whole model. The last could be useful when you need to generate a report for estimating, the other to produce condocā€™s.

BTW. check the condoc system by @mbrightman

fun stuff to read:

https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/meet.2008.1450450214

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And if you save your model to an older version of SU, the tag folders are in effect exploded - and the folder names are lost.

So you need the tag names to be unique (which I think is a better word for it than ā€˜discreteā€™).

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Donā€™t forget you can use tags and outliner together to show or hide elements together also,

I think the reason that tag names have to be unique is that at least as currently programmed that is the only id they have. Without uniqueness SketchUp wouldnā€™t be able to tell them apart. But perhaps a revision could add ids distinct from the textual name.

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Unless I am missing something obvious, is Outliner available in Layout? That is the other piece to this puzzle. Not just organization in SU but also giving organization and lessening the need for scenes to create a scaled drawing in LO.

No. Thereā€™s no need for Outliner in LayOut since you canā€™t do anything in LO with the components/groups in the model anyway.

Reducing the number of scenes is a good thing but you still need to create some scenes. Iā€™ve been able to make a big reduction in the number of scenes I need when creating a furniture plan from a SketchUp model but Iā€™m still using scenes and I donā€™t disconnect the viewports from the scenes. I see plenty of examples from others who have done so and the problems they create for themselves.

Can you elaborate a bit more on this?
I was currently planning on just using ā€œstandard viewsā€ and tags to isolate parts of my model so I can add dimensions in LO.
Normally I would create a scene for each view (top, side, front, back, iso) of each major component of the model so I could break it down and add scaled dimensions in LO.

In a SketchUp model for a furniture plan I will set up scenes for 3/4 perspective, front 2D, and side 2D, along with exploded view and one or more for parts laid out for 2-view or 3-view for dimensioning. The number of scenes for these depends on the complexity of the project. For complex models I find it easier to break them down into multiple scenes.

In LO I use those scenes for the viewports. The same scene can be used for multiple viewports. In the plan I delivered on Friday I have six scenes and 17 viewports. The only changes I ever make in the Camera section of the SketchUp Model panel is to set the scale and tick or untick Preserve Scale. I do not select from the Standard Views in the SketchUp Model panel as that is taken care of by the scenes. And I never use Last saved SketchUp view as a scene.

I do control which tags are visible in different viewports as needed and now with the control of weight, dash style and edge color in LO, I set those in LO instead of in SU. I also save my models with only my default working style to keep that file size down and then I select the styles for my viewports in LO.

The dashed line from the screw, is a solid line in the SU model (make it simple to align so it passes through the button.) but the tag for that lineā€™s component was set to have a dash style. The bead along the bottom of the apron was set to a thinner lineweight so it doesnā€™t look like a heavy solid black line.

As I wrote before, Iā€™ve seen plenty of screwed up files from others because they didnā€™t use scenes in SketchUp or didnā€™t leave their viewports connected to scenes. I never have those problems in my files, though.

If you were doing a quick one-off document, you can get away with being sloppy in your work but if you need to go back to the SketchUp model to make edits, you can end up creating more work than you might think you were saving by not creating the scenes in SketchUp.

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My bad, I assumed you were setting visibility prior to exporting to layout. Not realizing you were using the same scene in several places with separate visibility in each.

Iā€™m in the learning curve with AlanG, too - Layout, Tags and Scenes - and finding the thread timely and helpful. Thanks, all. Iā€™ve got 66 Components and 17 Scenes and decided to try using Tags to toggle visibility instead of using Hide.
I started with Select All > Entity Info > Tag ā€œ! Everything Elseā€.
Everything has to be tagged, right?
image

Untagged should always be the current or active tag and it canā€™t be hidden. But it shouldnā€™t need to be hidden, either since all raw geometry is in a group or component and all of them are tagged.

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That will tag everything, including raw geometry which should not be tagged.

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