Trouble importing Materials in SU 2018 on Mac

I am struggling to import my materials collections to SU 2018 Mac version. In 2017 I just dragged the files into Materials in Finder, but it does not seem to work in SU 2018. I can’t seem to import anything through the Materials / Color browser in a SU window. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks

Hi

I must confess it looks like you’ve got them in there.

I managed to copy and paste mine across to exactly the location you have shown, so I’m not entirely sure what is happening.

When you try and paste them in, what happens? Do you get a message stating it’s not possible?

Mike

you won’t see them in SU until you restart it…

but they certainly look like they are in the right place…

john

Bingo- The restart did the trick. I had been closing the window and reopening a new document, but not restarting SU. I have been thrashing on this all afternoon, and am feeling a bit stupid. Thanks for the solution.

Hi. Hope you don’t mind me butting in here. I am not new to SU but am new to Mac - and I am unable to find the folder in which to place the .skm files. There is simply nothing in the SketchUp folder apart from 1 plug in. Any ideas how to find this.

A Mac Mystery: Open a Finder window, then hit GO in the menu bar and the Option key. A folder called “Library” will appear. Select Library, then follow this path:

you must be looking in the wrong folder…

~/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2018/SketchUp

is the one you need…

if materials isn’t there, you can use Finder >> Add Folder

john

One handy Mac feature is that you can select a file path, right-click, and from the Services menu you can select Show in Finder. If you do that with the path below, you should be able to go straight to the right place:

~/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 2018/SketchUp/

Thanks, appreciate the help. That is definitely where I am looking. So you are saying, just add a materials folder? I can do that, but where are all of the standard textures (I have used the search facility adding every term I can think of - including what you suggest - and find nothing related.)

are in the Application and should remain there…

user materials need to be in the User folder…

john

Success - thanks again! Very much appreciated. Now I can get on with my work.
I must comment though, how the combination of how Apple likes to hide things in obscure places, and the lack of information from Trimble, on such - I would consider - very important issues is incredibly time wasting and frustrating.

Both Apple and Microsoft have hidden user directories the SketchUp utilizes for content that most users don’t normally need direct access to. Files such as materials, extensions, and styles are normally added through other means than using Finder or File Explorer.

If you’d spent as many hours as many of the sages including myself have spent trying to help SketchUp users get these things straightened out back before the hidden user directories were used you would find this arrangement preferable.

That’s cool - I appreciate that angle. I was really referring more to the tiny little dots of icons Apple seem to place like a where’s Wally, and in as in this case - there being no way of knowing (and no documentation that I could find, to explain) that a new folder needed to be added and (incredibly!) that it would be recognised. I would have thought there are 1,000’s of designers out there who load up suppliers swatches for daily use.
On my pc I have / had a number of these - having no trouble installing them. (This is the first time - in more than 15 SU years - I have actually asked for help.) Thanks again for taking the time to help.

I would like to be able add materials or folders of materials to my custom collections via the SU material browser in the (Mac version) but cannot figure out how to do it.

you can’t on a mac…

for easy access you can drag the Material folder to the Finder Sidebar and add/remove named folders of skms there…

or you can use an extension…

john

AH HA! That would certainly explain my failure to do so.

Here is a different approach. If you have a set of textures that you’re always using, in every SKP file, you can put them into the swatches along the bottom of the Colors palette. Eyedropper pick up a favorite material, then drag the larger square in the bottom left of the Colors palette, into one of the two rows of small squares at the bottom of the palette. You can make the window wider if you like, but there’s enough space in the normal size for about 40 materials.

This file stores them:

You’ll see the file get bigger as you add more materials. You can now quit SketchUp and come back another day, and they will be there for you. Any other program that uses the standard color palette gets them too, but only the average color of the texture.

By the way, here’s an article on making your own custom sets of colors. I’m not sure how they would show up in SketchUp, but it could be worth investigating:

https://www.mapdiva.com/artboard/artb-tutorial/12-custom-color-palettes-for-macos/

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