Lock toolbars

[Jim]

I have taken to not using Toolbars, or having a very minimal number open. I wrote a custom WebDialog (or 2) to replace Toolbars. One dialog is a general toolbar replacement, the other toggles the normal Toolbars visible/not visible. The dialogs are pretty rough around the edges since I am the only one who uses them; but they do show what can be done and how the WebDialogs can (and will) be an effective alternative to the built-in Toolbars.

There are a few other, similar plugins that are using webdialogs as toolbar alternatives.

My dialogs: the short texts are buttons, too.

(moved post from another topic)

[rockstarkid76]

Julian, why dont you get rid of all your toolbars and jsut use keyboard shortcuts? it takes a bit of getting used to but its a lot faster

BUT NOT ALL COMMANDS HAVE SHORTCUTS!

[rockstarkid76]

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)

GREAT!!! THANKS

[thomthom]

Julian, why dont you get rid of all your toolbars and jsut use keyboard shortcuts? it takes a bit of getting used to but its a lot faster

BUT NOT ALL COMMANDS HAVE SHORTCUTS!

You can set up your own shortcuts from Window > Preferences > Shortcuts

(p.s. Please don't use all caps when writing a post. It's considered bad forum manner. If anything, use all lower. Makes things much easier to read and it doesn't make you look like you are yelling.)

[rockstarkid76]

Julian, why dont you get rid of all your toolbars and jsut use keyboard shortcuts? it takes a bit of getting used to but its a lot faster

BUT NOT ALL COMMANDS HAVE SHORTCUTS!

You can set up your own shortcuts from Window > Preferences > Shortcuts

(p.s. Please don't use all caps when writing a post. It's considered bad forum manner. If anything, use all lower. Makes things much easier to read and it doesn't make you look like you are yelling.)

im sorry for using all caps.my apologies

[numerobis]

sorry... but every time i read this topic title i have to laugh... it's really a big joke that this annoying little problem is still not fixed after such a long time!
If this is such a hard thing to do, the developers of nearly all other softwares i know must be real geniuses since they found a solution for this "unsolvable" problem...

[Tobobo]

sorry... but every time i read this topic title i have to laugh... it's really a big joke that this annoying little problem is still not fixed after such a long time!
If this is such a hard thing to do, the developers of nearly all other softwares i know must be real geniuses since they found a solution for this "unsolvable" problem...

the save tool bars have gone along way to solve it. Though saying that it hasn't happened in a while. touch wood

[kwistenbiebel]

Yes, annoying bug still around..

[findthong]

I have taken to not using Toolbars, or having a very minimal number open. I wrote a custom WebDialog (or 2) to replace Toolbars. One dialog is a general toolbar replacement, the other toggles the normal Toolbars visible/not visible. The dialogs are pretty rough around the edges since I am the only one who uses them; but they do show what can be done and how the WebDialogs can (and will) be an effective alternative to the built-in Toolbars.

There are a few other, similar plugins that are using webdialogs as toolbar alternatives.

My dialogs: the short texts are buttons, too.

(moved post from another topic)

This is quite nice. Everyone here having some problem with Toolbar, but my problem is Web Dialogs LOL.
I'm using Dual monitor set up. Sometime I work with SketchUp on my 1st monitor when SketchUp is being my top priority and many time I've to move it to 2nd monitor. And web dialogs not going to move with SketchUp. That's quite annoying and I need to do a lot workaround and get familier with it.

And I've just counted I've 112 shortcut combinations to get aroud these UI problem as much as possible! And I can remember 80 percent of them, but not much icons!. It need a lot brain power, when you want to have less moving around as possible while using a lot of scripts to prevent tedious tasks as much as possible. I can't imagine I can even work in SketchUp without my cheat sheet or on other computer .

We definitely need some UI love for extensive users, because there're so many advanced SketchUp user around!

[shawnkelly]

Sounds like some of the users in this post need to move to another software. This is called Sketch-Up for a reason. I was most likely developed by someone that was tired of the limitations of pencil and paper. It is meant for sketching out ideas quickly without the fuss of all that you people bring to it. I despise the other programs because of their complexity. I use them (Rhino and Modo) of course because they are unnecessary but not at the beginning of a project that has no initial parameters. Do not try to make it so hard on yourselves, it steals all the fun out of it.
BTW, has anyone tried View>Toolbar>Save Toolbar Location/Restore Toolbar Location. I crash (Bug-Splat) Sketch-Up all the time and I have yet to manually move all my toolbars back to their positions after restoring them.

[Rich O Brien]

No splat here on Restore Toolbars


.

[pbacot]

We don't have this problem on Macs.

The toolbars are never in a good place, never where you put them, same with windows so they can't be messed up. You get the Mac "customize toolbar" which also sucks.

[MichaelNeyses]

I just cant fathom, what you guys are doing with your toolbars, I closely watched the progress of this discussion. I almost feel guilty by not having this genuine problem at all.
If the bars are disturbed, which very rarely occurs, I hit the ALT/F9 Button that I have set on the 'Restore Toolbars' command and all the boys are back in place.
I dont have any explanation for this good behavoir other then maybe that I am using a 30" screen which gives me planty of room not to mess in the vicinity of the bars.
I rely very much on SU during my workday and produce at least 50 projekts a year. I would have never stuck with this software, if there were such instances as the need of rearranging the landscape of toolbars 5 times a day! Maybe choose the plugins I am using a bit carefully but I have learned long ago that being a gearhead and jumping on any train is the least splendid of all forthcoming methods.

[Gaieus]

Note that this discussion started in 2008 (see first post) when there was no such function as "Save toolbar position" or "Restore toolbar position".

People keep re-discovering this topic time-to-time...

[panixia]

I dont have any explanation for this good behavoir other then maybe that I am using a 30" screen which gives me planty of room not to mess in the vicinity of the bars.

of course not, the width of the monitor doesn't matter. the pixel count does.
if you got a 17" 1920x1280px and a 40"1920x1280 px you got the same "pixel space" to use with your toolbar buttons (wich have a fixed pixel dimension).
the only difference is that you see bigger pixel, so that you can actually visualize bigger buttons, but you can dock the same amount of buttons than the smaller monitor does.
i find that in order to visualize more toolbars/dialogs and other UI elements it's a more effective solution to use 2 smaller monitor rather than 1 bigger montitor.
(or maybe 2 bigger montor if you got the cash for it of course)