I am now using components a lot more than I used to before. Sometimes I create a component and give it a name and then wind up deleting it for some reason. Then I recreate a new component the way I want it to be and I can’t name it the old component name even though a dialogue box pops out and warns me about the existence of that component and asks me if I want to overwrite it or something like that. It never names my component and I have to choose another name. What puzzles me is that the original component is not in the model since I deleted it.
This tells me that even though I delete a component, somehow the program has a ghost of it somewhere. So my question today is how can I find these ghosts and clean them up, or why does the program think they are still there if I have deleted them?
What is the best way of using one component to make another, similar component out of?
Components are kept in the In Model Components library. Look in the Components window. Click on the house icon. If you delete components that you really don’t need, you can purge them from the library. There are some reasons you might keep them but it can be useful to purge unused components, too.
Keep in mind that it might make more sense to edit the existing component than to delete it and redraw it, too.
Dave, thanks. I had found the component list but delete is disabled. I wanted to delete the components that I am no longer using.
Also the reason for the backwards way that I am doing this is because I copy a component and rename it so that I can make a new component but even though I have renamed it to say, part-2, it still acts like it is the old component. So I wind up deleting it but the program seems to keep a ghost of that new component in. Very confusing.
Maybe you could share an example SKP that shows what you are doing?
If Purge Unused is not available, it would mean that there’s still an instance of each of the components shown in the In Model library. If Purge Unused isn’t present in the menu, you aren’t looking at the In Model library.
I don’t see “purge unused” selection anywhere in the workspace.
And rather than sending you a model I started a brand new, simple model and experimented with. Here is what I do:
I draw a little square and turn it into a component, giving it the name xyz.
Then I delete that square and draw another one.
I try to turn that one into a component. When I give it the name xyz the program tells me that the component already exists blah blah blah. I can even see it in the component list window - it does exist and it does not go away.
So why is that>? Why is it that deleting the single incident of a component from the model does not delete its registration in the model data structure?
I can attach a model but really there is nothing special about this issue.
Delete works only with components in your current model file (in the In Model collection, the house icon). Components in the other collections cannot be deleted in this way.
This creates a component definition with the name “xyz”, then asks you if you wish to replace your selection with the component. IF you say “Yes”, SketchUp creates a component instance and places it at the origin of the selection. (Edit: Actually it is checkbox at the bottom of the “Make Component” dialog.)
FYI, Component instances and component definitions have separate name attributes.
This deletes the component instance from the model entities collection. The component definition with the name “xyz”, still exists in the model’s DefinitionList collection. (The list of component definitions is displayed in the Component Manager inspector dialog. The list of any component instances in the model are displayed in the Outliner dialog.)
Because it still does exist. (blah blah blah … see above posts on how to remove the definition.)
Thanks for the information, and sorry for the delayed acknowledgement. I will study components more and make adjustments to the way I relate to the feature, keeping your information in mind.
