I have built components and saved them in Sketchup, but cannot figure out
how to load them when making a new drawing. I don't see any menu options to
load a component. Anybody have the answer to this?

--

-Mike-

On 1/8/2013 8:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
I have built components and saved them in Sketchup, but cannot figure out
how to load them when making a new drawing. I don't see any menu options to
load a component. Anybody have the answer to this?


Click Window, Components. In the pop up window look "below" the EDIT
tab and click the down arrow next to the house.

Click in Model to get a list in this drawing, Click the appropriate
heading for other lists of components.

Clicking the house will automatically list the components in the current
drawing.

On 1/8/2013 8:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
I have built components and saved them in Sketchup, but cannot figure out
how to load them when making a new drawing. I don't see any menu options to
load a component. Anybody have the answer to this?


Click Window, Components. In the pop up window look "below" the EDIT
tab and click the down arrow next to the house.

Click in Model to get a list in this drawing, Click the appropriate
heading for other lists of components.

Clicking the house will automatically list the components in the current
drawing.

On 1/8/2013 8:52 PM, Leon wrote:
On 1/8/2013 8:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
I have built components and saved them in Sketchup, but cannot figure out
how to load them when making a new drawing. I don't see any menu
options to
load a component. Anybody have the answer to this?


Click Window, Components. In the pop up window look "below" the EDIT
tab and click the down arrow next to the house.

Click in Model to get a list in this drawing, Click the appropriate
heading for other lists of components.

Clicking the house will automatically list the components in the current
drawing.


To go a bit further, after making a component right click it's icon in
the Component window and choose "Save As". You should know what to do
from there. Simply creating a component does not save a component
outside the drawing. You will need to save it else where if you want to
get it with out opening the drawing it was created in.



Create a personal folder in your Sketchup data directory, Name it
something like My Components and save you components there. Then later
when you are looking for that component,

In the Component pop up window click the arrow pointing Right on the
right side of the window. Choose open or create to do either. Look for
the My Components folder, choose it and you will then have a list appear
in the component window with your components.

On 1/8/2013 9:12 PM, Leon wrote:

One more thing, components are saved as Sketchup Drawings with a .skp
extension. Naturally if you double click that component in a file
manager it will open Sketchup with that component.

On 1/8/2013 6:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
I have built components and saved them in Sketchup, but cannot figure out
how to load them when making a new drawing. I don't see any menu options to
load a component. Anybody have the answer to this?

If I understand your question, you have components saved in various sketchup
files and want to bring them into your current (or a new) drawing.

Besides the component dialog box method that has been mentioned, there are at
least two other ways that to bring things from one sketchup drawing into another.

1) You can use 'import' from the 'File' menu to bring the entire contents of
other drawings into the current drawing. Among other things this works with
files containing components.

2) Copy and paste. Open a source drawing and select the component or any items
that you want to transfer to a new drawing. Then either press cntl-c or select
'Copy' from the 'Edit' menu. Then open the destination drawing use either
cntl-v or 'Edit/Paste' to place the previously selected items.

Note: Copy/Paste also works to copy things from one component into another.


Dam

Leon wrote:
On 1/8/2013 8:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
I have built components and saved them in Sketchup, but cannot
figure out how to load them when making a new drawing. I don't see
any menu options to load a component. Anybody have the answer to
this?


Click Window, Components. In the pop up window look "below" the EDIT
tab and click the down arrow next to the house.

Click in Model to get a list in this drawing, Click the appropriate
heading for other lists of components.

Clicking the house will automatically list the components in the
current drawing.

Ahhh! Thank you sir! I was absolutely certain that I had pulled down every
menu option and looked for Component options, but I clearly missed that one.
I would have bet money on it! Although... if I had found it, it would have
never occurred to me to look in the house icon. I probably would have tried
that just in effort to look and see what everything does, but it sure would
not have been intuitive to me.

Thanks!

--

-Mike-

Dan Coby wrote in
m:

On 1/8/2013 6:19 PM, Mike Marlow wrote:
I have built components and saved them in Sketchup, but
cannot figure out how to load them when making a new
drawing. I don't see any menu options to load a
component. Anybody have the answer to this?

If I understand your question, you have components saved in
various sketchup files and want to bring them into your
current (or a new) drawing.

Besides the component dialog box method that has been
mentioned, there are at least two other ways that to bring
things from one sketchup drawing into another.

1) You can use 'import' from the 'File' menu to bring the
entire contents of other drawings into the current drawing.
Among other things this works with files containing
components.

2) Copy and paste. Open a source drawing and select the
component or any items that you want to transfer to a new
drawing. Then either press cntl-c or select 'Copy' from the
'Edit' menu. Then open the destination drawing use either
cntl-v or 'Edit/Paste' to place the previously selected
items.

Note: Copy/Paste also works to copy things from one
component into another.


Dam

Following Leon's suggestion of saving components in a separate
directory you can simply browse that directory, assuming
you've named them with something meaningful, and drag and drop
the .skp file into your current drawing.

If you want to insert a single component this is not much
help. However, if you have a bunch of standard components that
you use regularly there's no need for the dialog box. It's far
quicker to drag a few into the drawing and rearrange them
after insertion.

Additionally, they are inserted on the current layer if you
wish to use that feature.

Larry

On 1/9/2013 6:42 PM, Larry wrote:
Following Leon's suggestion of saving components in a separate
directory you can simply browse that directory, assuming
you've named them with something meaningful, and drag and drop
the .skp file into your current drawing.

If you want to insert a single component this is not much
help. However, if you have a bunch of standard components that
you use regularly there's no need for the dialog box. It's far
quicker to drag a few into the drawing and rearrange them
after insertion.

Additionally, they are inserted on the current layer if you
wish to use that feature.

Larry

Thanks, I did not know about this method.


Dan

On 1/8/2013 9:16 PM, Leon wrote:
One more thing, components are saved as Sketchup Drawings with a .skp
extension. Naturally if you double click that component in a file
manager it will open Sketchup with that component.

Here is something I did not know about "components" (also posted on G+
woodworking Community):

Just bought the Kindle version of Alexander Schreyer's book
"Architectural Design with Sketchup". I'm impressed.

No matter how proficient you are with any tool, including software
tools, you can always learn something. Sure enough, didn't make it
through the first chapter without that happening.

As much as I use them, and preach "components" to those who ask me for
advice with SketchUp, I never stopped to understand just why that their
(components) use, over "groups", was such a big factor in file size.

I knew that they did, but just never thought it through to a logical
conclusion ... too busy modeling.

Understanding that one thing made a bunch of other lights regarding the
behavior of components come on.

If the reader is wondering, an attempt at paraphrasing Alexander's point
in that regard (terminology may be suspect):

With "groups", each copy of a group added to the model is stored in the
model, thus multiple copies of a "group" add to the file size.

With "components", there is only one of each unique component stored in
the model, all copies of that component inserted in a model are simply
an instance of that one stored component.

Wondering what else I missed in the first grade ... 

--
eWoodShop: www.eWoodShop.com
Wood Shop: www.e-WoodShop.net
https://plus.google.com/114902129577517371552/posts
http://www.custommade.com/by/ewoodshop/
KarlCaillouet@ (the obvious)

Swingman wrote:
On 1/8/2013 9:16 PM, Leon wrote:
One more thing, components are saved as Sketchup Drawings with a .skp
extension. Naturally if you double click that component in a file
manager it will open Sketchup with that component.

Here is something I did not know about "components" (also posted on G+
woodworking Community):

Just bought the Kindle version of Alexander Schreyer's book
"Architectural Design with Sketchup". I'm impressed.

No matter how proficient you are with any tool, including software tools,
you can always learn something. Sure enough, didn't make it through the
first chapter without that happening.

As much as I use them, and preach "components" to those who ask me for
advice with SketchUp, I never stopped to understand just why that their
(components) use, over "groups", was such a big factor in file size.

I knew that they did, but just never thought it through to a logical
conclusion ... too busy modeling.

Understanding that one thing made a bunch of other lights regarding the
behavior of components come on.

If the reader is wondering, an attempt at paraphrasing Alexander's point
in that regard (terminology may be suspect):

With "groups", each copy of a group added to the model is stored in the
model, thus multiple copies of a "group" add to the file size.

With "components", there is only one of each unique component stored in
the model, all copies of that component inserted in a model are simply an
instance of that one stored component.

Wondering what else I missed in the first grade ... 


OK, Totally agree with what you said above however making an assembly of
components into another larger component instead of into a group of
components can present another problem which "may be" a bigger issue than
ending up with a larger file size or possibly slower performance.

For those of us that export components into a program like CutList and or
CutList Plus, making up a larger component from a group of components
increases the number of components in the list being exported. You will
have to carefully edit out those extra assembled components. If you export
an assembled "group" of components you only export the individual
components and you don't have to edit the exported list of components.
There are benefits and draw backs to both assembling components as larger
components or assembling components as a group.

On 1/11/2013 10:22 AM, Leon wrote:
Swingman wrote:
On 1/8/2013 9:16 PM, Leon wrote:
One more thing, components are saved as Sketchup Drawings with a .skp
extension. Naturally if you double click that component in a file
manager it will open Sketchup with that component.

Here is something I did not know about "components" (also posted on G+
woodworking Community):

Just bought the Kindle version of Alexander Schreyer's book
"Architectural Design with Sketchup". I'm impressed.

No matter how proficient you are with any tool, including software tools,
you can always learn something. Sure enough, didn't make it through the
first chapter without that happening.

As much as I use them, and preach "components" to those who ask me for
advice with SketchUp, I never stopped to understand just why that their
(components) use, over "groups", was such a big factor in file size.

I knew that they did, but just never thought it through to a logical
conclusion ... too busy modeling.

Understanding that one thing made a bunch of other lights regarding the
behavior of components come on.

If the reader is wondering, an attempt at paraphrasing Alexander's point
in that regard (terminology may be suspect):

With "groups", each copy of a group added to the model is stored in the
model, thus multiple copies of a "group" add to the file size.

With "components", there is only one of each unique component stored in
the model, all copies of that component inserted in a model are simply an
instance of that one stored component.

Wondering what else I missed in the first grade ... 


OK, Totally agree with what you said above however making an assembly of
components into another larger component instead of into a group of
components can present another problem which "may be" a bigger issue than
ending up with a larger file size or possibly slower performance.

AKA, "nested" components.

While I was specifically addressing _file size_, and the basic
underlying basic difference between "groups" and "components", it is
well to note that the use of multiple "nested" components in a model can
indeed slow SketchUp's performance ... regardless of file size.

--
eWoodShop: www.eWoodShop.com
Wood Shop: www.e-WoodShop.net
https://plus.google.com/114902129577517371552/posts
http://www.custommade.com/by/ewoodshop/
KarlCaillouet@ (the obvious)