Lock toolbars

[Gaieus]

These last posts were split off from the "Latest release" topic.

[Ken]

Well I see the toolbar issue has been moved because it was not on subject. To me, that was the subject. I downloaded the new maintence release, approximately 15 minutes total to download and install. Fire up Sketchup and wham bam, ready not to use. So now I spend hours trying to get my drawing space back. Even now into the next day I am still fighting to get the tools bars back to position I had them before the upgrade.

This disorder happens everytime I load a new toolbar. My solution until now, which with this new release seems harder to get the toolbars into position, was to have any toolbar I thought I might ever need loaded and finally after much fuss getting them into some condensed position, without losing a great deal of drawing space and save the file as my template.

What I really want is to start off with the minimum toolbars, add what I need, subtract what I don't need, and not spend the next hours trying to get my drawing space back.

Ken

[Gaieus]

Hi Ken,

I can feel your pain. Do you thinkI loike rearranging my toolbars every time I install a new plugin or even if just resize my SU window? This should have obviously been fixed by now. Not in a way that they stay where you put them (that would be the minimum) but in a much more sophisticated way.

BUT I thinkit is obvious that with a simple maintenance release like this (when they generally fix some minor bugs mostly turned up by the big, main release only),this won't be solved.

Then what's new in the new release? Definitely not what is "not new"; a recurrent annoyance. That takes it OT and after almost a hole page going on about this, it needs to be split. The toolbar misery has it's own place - here.

[Ken]

Gaieus
I guess I was venting a little steam.

IMHO, the Google guys make a living by updating SketchUp and don’t use it for work, or they would know how much time is wasted trying to keep the most acreage on screen. Moreover, it not like it just popped up with the latest release or version. The problem has been here as far as I know since version 4.

So it is time, this has risen to the top my list of items that need a solution.

So thanks for your understanding of the my frustration, Gaieus.

Now, I will be quite and get back to work.
Ken

[remus]

Im sure it will do very little to ease your pain, but if you get enough shortcuts setup it is quite possible to model entirely with shortcuts. Combined with a choice few toolbars i have found this to be the best solution.

[xrok1]

BUT I thinkit is obvious that with a simple maintenance release like this (when they generally fix some minor bugs mostly turned up by the big, main release only),this won't be solved.

this is exactly the kind of things that service releases should be aimed at. whats the alternative, they fix it for ver.8 so they can sell it as a new feature? "buy sketchup8, now with toolbars that work the way they should." urrgh!

[Gaieus]

Im sure it will do very little to ease your pain, but if you get enough short-cuts setup it is quite possible to model entirely with short-cuts. Combined with a choice few tool-bars i have found this to be the best solution.

I actually combine this with Jim's tool-bar plug-in and have stripped my SU window entirely off the tool-bars. Now the only "native" tool-bar is Jim's and there are a couple of plug-ins placed nicely under each other but everything is floating next to my SU window where I don't have any tool-bars.

About 80% of the cases I use short-cuts anyway and this allows me to "dump" all those icons the tool of which I'd use with short-cuts anyway and to keep only those plug-ins "alive" that I'm currently using for that particular model (e.g. I don't need the Kerky exporter or the IDX Renditioner tool-bars) while modelling.

Yes, I KNOW this is a sort of workaround (but this is SketchUp after all and we are masters at workarounds, aren't we?) but has one very big advantage as well; since Jim's script stores the tool-bar info in an external file, I can set it up once and carry it from computer to computer without any problem.

[notareal]

there is a little trick to help you, once you are happy with your toolbar arrangement, close sketchup (the UI gets saved internally). anytime your screen gets resized, or messed up, or your toolbars change - don't close sketchup, open another instance of sketchup - this one opens with the original UI. then close both windows but make sure that you close the clean and tidy @last

this way your clean UI gets saved as last overwriting the messy one (since all instances of sketchup share one UI setting)

Thanks for the tip. This has been one major annoyance.

[putnik]

+1
Registry tweak works OK only till the next installation of a new script with toolbar which is always followed by another toolbar chaos. Google, please fix this.

[RayOchoa]

+1 happened to me today

[Pixero]

I've found a good way of placing toolbars is to click in the lower left part of a menu and release it at the upper left part where you want it it doesnt "jump back" to where it was.

[Pixero]

Bump.

I added a couple new ruby scripts today and what do you know... all my toolbars were flung all over my screen. And then I had to fix it all over again at home.
Please fix this Google.

When ever I add a new script it A L W A Y S the Sandbox toolbar that moves around and mess things up. Is it the same for you?

[thomthom]

When ever I add a new script it A L W A Y S the Sandbox toolbar that moves around and mess things up. Is it the same for you?

Nopes. Any toolbar. Often all.

[MALAISE]

You can also using the Toolsbar Menu, unselect all items. Close SU and reopen, you'll get a brand new space and reselect step by step all favourites !
But it looks like some dressing ( first aid) on a piece of wood ( very bad translation's French say )

MALAISE

[halroach]

The Jumping Toolbar Syndrome! - PARTIAL SOLUTION
Sometimes I find myself battling the toolbars to get them all tight and snug (after the installation of a new ruby toolbar).
for example:
I have three lines of toolbars lets say, and two of them are full, with the third line containing only a few buttons. I then try to place another toolbar on the third line, and instead of if being placed right next to it, it's placed on a fourth line, wasting all that space on the third line... argggh

I have found a solution to the jumping toolbar problem!
you must pack and cram each line of toolbars all the way to the end, until one of the toolbars get cropped, and then cram one more toolbar until one of the toolbars shifts to the next line automatically (sort of like an auto carriage return, or wordwrap). Now you can rearrange the toolbars on the third line, and they won't jump around! and you can replace the cropped toolbar from the second line to the third line too...

Hope This Helps Someone

[arjunmax09]

there are so many people on this forum who are awesome at making plugins... is there a possibility that one can make a plugin that just stops this haywire toolbars problem??

[thomthom]

There's been a great number of brave attempts. Countless hours has been spent trying to hack the wretches thing - but all have returned bruised and scared.

[arjunmax09]

There's been a great number of brave attempts. Countless hours has been spent trying to hack the wretches thing - but all have returned bruised and scared.

i see.....but as the adidas line goes ..."IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING"... surely one genius is going to crack this problem...

[putnik]

Until a couple of days ago installing a new script would mess up my toolbar locations, but at least I could re-arrange toolbars. Then I installed a couple of new ones, Extrusion Tools by TIG was one of them. And toolbars stopped sticking to where I wanted them to be! Really annoying!

Strangely, the following from Halroach did help. Thanks!

I have found a solution to the jumping toolbar problem!
you must pack and cram each line of toolbars all the way to the end, until one of the toolbars get cropped, and then cram one more toolbar until one of the toolbars shifts to the next line automatically (sort of like an auto carriage return, or wordwrap). Now you can rearrange the toolbars on the third line, and they won't jump around! and you can replace the cropped toolbar from the second line to the third line too...

PS This is not to say that TIG's Extrusion Tools was actually the culprit. I don't know what was.

[Banaticus]

...except office 2007

Well, Microsoft has the official stance that things can't be removed from the Ribbon... but what they don't advertise is that you can hide things on the Ribbon and otherwise move stuff around (and add new things): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... ustomizing

I would really really like to see the ability to do something like that, some sort of coding or CSS or XML or something that would allow us to upload a customized UI from a file. There are a few things that I like to use regularly that I just can't do with keyboard shortcuts, like the Dimension tool for callouts. I've set it to the "D" key, but then there's that layer-pane thing that sizes itself to cover the model and which "hides" (removes) everything on one side of it -- I love sliding that thing back and forth to quickly remove a wall.

[Joewoodworker]

I've had to arrange my toolbars for the third/fourth time today. Really annoying! I hope this will be fixed soon so one can lock your tools (menu top and left) in position so in the even of something happening you don't have to rearrange them afterwards.

I think this has been mentioned (requested) in the wishlist before, hope it gets the attention it deserves.

Hey Juju...

Ummm, why don't you set the screen up as you'd like to see it everytime by turning it into a template? You set up everything, the units, the toolbars, the background get rid of Brice...everything you want. The next time you launch SU...presto! It's the way you want it.

[halroach]

An observation:

1. There are plugins (most plugins) that load a toolbar automatically when first installed - and in most cases cause a lot of havoc - moving all the other toolbars all over the place.

2. On the other hand plugins that need to be initially "checked" ('view'\'toolbars'\'plugin name') or from ('preferences'\'extensions'\'plugin name') usually load somewhere in the middle of the screen that way they can be placed easily without messing everything up. I am not a coder, but maybe the initial placement of the toolbar is something that can be coded into each plugin... (i.e. make it load somewhere neutral at first load) or is it just by chance?

[xennon]

This is incredible ... this thread alone has been going since Apr 2008 ... more than 30 months and STILL no resolution to the extremely annoying *issue*. Version 8 has now come out and guess what - I STILL DOES IT!!.

OMFG - What does it take for goooooooogle to pull their finger out and address this problem?

Someone else said that it's been around since at least v4 ... how long ago was that?!

Given the enormous resource base of gooooooogle, rivaled probably only by microsoft and yahoo in scale - how bad must their developers be if they can't solve this problem in the years that they've had to mess with it.

totally gob-smacked!

[jbacus]

This is incredible ... this thread alone has been going since Apr 2008 ... more than 30 months and STILL no resolution to the extremely annoying *issue*. Version 8 has now come out and guess what - I STILL DOES IT!!.

While it is clear that you're not impressed with our improvement (for those who've missed it so far, we're also discussing this on the SketchUp Help Forum), I'm curious to know if it had any impact on the workflow of other folks here on SCF?

The basic problem is that folks with more than a dozen Ruby extensions (I ran into someone yesterday who had over 200 of them installed at once... whoa!) are overwhelming our simple MFC toolbar implementation. It just can't scale to that kind of usage. To make things work better, we'll have to stop using Microsoft's toolbars and write our own. That isn't a trivial project, unfortunately– we could do it, but it would mean not doing something else.

OMFG - What does it take for goooooooogle to pull their finger out and address this problem?

As I said over at our forums, being civil will make it much more likely that discussion of the actual problems at hand will occur. I'm quite willing to discuss these sorts of issues, but find it easier to do when folks are being polite.


john
.

[mitcorb]

"but find it easier to do when folks are being polite."

[Rich O Brien]

Xennon,

The toolbar has been given a serious overhaul and is a step forward. Pointing out how lazy and bad they development team does nothing for your argument. Also posting in 2 forums the same diatribe without a compelling case in either is disappointing. Your free to air your opinions wherever you wish. I might add that we're a friendly bunch around here, as you know from your Golden Ratio thread, and help is always forthcoming. We also welcome new members and encourage open and honest discussions. I would take John's advice and show some tact when raising your concerns with SU. You'll find alot more people will support you!

Also I can vouch that the guys at Google SketchUp not only work hard but party even harder

For those who are interested here's Xennon's post from the Google Help Forums...

That "remember" or *restore* option is a crock - it does nothing. It only works if you move toolbars around and change your mind (during that session) and want to go back to how they were when the prog started. If you install a new script/plugin, SU will ALWAYS start up after the install with messed up toolbars and pressing that restore button will do absolutely nothing.

This is a serious and extremely annoying BUG that's been there since waaaaaay back to version 4 at least. The best the developers have managed to come up with is a half-arsed save/restore option that fails more than it succeeds. Time to roll up the sleeves people and dig into the muck that must be the SU code and fix it once and for all.

Waddaya recon gooooooogle? ... you brave enough to have a go? (I for one think not)

[Tobobo]

I agree whilst it is frustrating that the toolbars move, i can imagine that Google have higher priorities in development such windows 7 and OS compatibility. Don’t forget Google bought SU to improve the openness of the 3D element of Good Earth. Plus it’s a minor thing in what is a massive programme. John's point about rubies is fair, I don’t have 200 ( ) but I know they can programme stuff based on that extreme amount.

So keep working boys and girls I can hold on a bit longer

PS. manners cost nothing so being nice to people is free.

[thomthom]

Plus it’s a minor thing in what is a massive programme.

It's a major annoyance restoring ones workspace every time you get the Shuffle. A reliable workspace is essential to get a good workflow - so UI elements moving about is not a good thing.

[Tobobo]

A fair point my dear sir, and for a SU giant such as yourself I can imagine that you have many toolbars surrounding your most splendiferous creations.

Me however aint got much.

My Screen.jpg

[thomthom]

Actually, I keep my visible toolbars to a minimum in order to reduce the pain of the Shuffle and save screen estate. I keep at max one row of small-icon toolbars. But some of them are several very short ones - which still leaves me with several toolbars to clean up. I really feel sorry for those who need to clean up more toolbars.