Trimble - Yea you: Time to allow Layout plugins:

LayOut Feature Requests
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Who knows how long it’s going to take some much needed features to be available for layout. I personally love and use Sketchup/Layout exclusively for my profession as a residential designer. Trimbles feature production capabilities to impliment features each year for layout is an incredibly slow and painful process to bare and I find it unnaceptable and know many users who use this program professionally would agree more or less with this.

I think Trimble needs to let go of whatever it is they are holding onto, and allow 3rd party developers to make Layout better. I personally think that Sketchup would not be the power program it is without allowing the plugin developers to create plugins for Sketchup and I think Layout needs the same capabilities now. It’s taking Trimble far too long to make Layout a better program. This is not to bash Sketchup and Layout, of course everyone is playing an important role in making these programs better, but the tiny amount of features Trimble adds each year to Sketchup and Layout I personally find it’s unnaceptable for arguably the best construction design software out there right now in regards to general construction design.

Quit playing around Trimble. Sketchup and Layout are arguably the best programs to use for general construction design and the excuses have been going on for far too long, if you can’t bust out the features, release the capability to allow others to create plugins for Layout like you do allow for Sketchup.

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Yes ArayaCAD,
If Trimble isn’t going to seriously improve LayOut in a reasonable time frame (as evidence to date suggests), then for everyone’s sake, please let someone else (developers) do it!
If Trimble can’t act with sufficient enlightened self interest to make LayOut into what it can and should be, then get out of the way! Why can’t Trimble see this need? Is it a lack of insight, a lack of funds, a lack of personnel, poor management, or what?

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https://ruby.sketchup.com/Layout.html …

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@Aerilius so is that the beginnings of now allowing people to create plugins for layout, is this now possible from your post link I just looked at? I don’t see the ruby console window in layout currently, I knew it was there I think before 2019 but gone now… So regardless of whether this is possible now or not, my comments below are broken up into two categories for hopefully trimble to think about - Layout plugins being allowed to be created and used in Layout & creating a roadmap so we can stop keeping people in the dark on both platforms Sketchup/Layout.

For me as much as I do love and rely on both Sketchup & Layout, what goes a long way for me as a professional who uses these programs, would be to see a roadmap. Something where I could see blogs about why it’s taking so long for things to happen, what Sketchup and Layout are currently working on. I think if Trimble could provide information like that, some reasons, some explanation, than I wouldn’t be nearly so frustrated about this. I was just reading a post where 5+ years ago a table of contents was asked for in Layout and still 2021 here we are, still nothing, it’s a joke and I just don’t think being nice about these things seem to always get things going which is partially why I am being forward with my thoughts. For people who really take the time to setup workflows, templates, use as many plugins they can to help them with their process, I really see Sketchup & Layout as the best programs out there for building design, the programs are so good and there is still so much potential… The amount of things Trimble gets done each year for feature updates on both programs is honestly unnacpetable in my opinion, but maybe hey, maybe they just don’t have the resources to release more features. @Mark , it sure would be great though to have a place where we could see what is going on, why things take so long etc as I’m sure the professionals who use your programs would really appreciate this. I use your program, I plan my future, I want to see what is being worked on so I can strategize and prepare but since everything is so hush hush, I can’t do any of that, and all of the users are left in the dark. I don’t see how that makes any logical sense and it’s honestly just frustrating. In my opinion and in this regard about features, I think this is just flat out bad customer service. Trimble may do well in other areas, but it’s users are in the dark and for what good reason?

Take a look at Clickup and there updates each week, it blows Trimble out of the water and clickup I would guess is an even smaller team, but they get customer service and they get the importance of feature updates. Without any info on what’s going on, part of me sometimes wonders if Trimble cares that much, I’m sure they care, but maybe not nearly enough and of course I have to assume that given the track record and being in the dark on general information.

So yes I agree, move over trimble if you can’t develop the features layout needs, let others do it for you.

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This is not yet for LayOut extensions in LayOut, but SketchUp extensions to interact with LayOut documents. So 3rd party developers can already make (integration with) Layout better. But it is a clear statement that the SketchUp team are well aware of the value and importance of extensions.

It is always good when someone voices such well-founded criticism also from a well-informed standpoint (which is unfortunately not anymore common, when you think of the millions of self-taught virologists :wink: ). But the fact that the LayOut API is from 2018 and you (and many others) weren’t aware of it can also be interpreted as very revealing about its success.

It may have been the first step to get something started, but to me it seems the usefulness of a potential extension API in LayOut is not comparable to an API for manipulating LayOut documents in SketchUp.

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Thanks for the info! What do you mean about manipulating layout documents in Sketchup, are you referring to how one can use a plugin in Sketchup to than effect something in Layout, such as some plugins by VBO? I have been aware of that since 2019.

Yea you have a good point about being informed, I agree. I don’t know everything that’s happening with sketchup and layout, but I’ve been using it for many years and the proof is in the pudding and I’ve seen the pudding, year after year. I think being aware and actually getting things done are two different things. One is talk, the other is action. The development is slow for sketchup and layout, it’s very slow, and they leave us in the dark with general update information on future plans. With those points I just mentioned, I just think that’s bad customer service and a bad business model and especially if they plan on continuing down that path. I would hope to see them improve in those areas.

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