HISTORY OF PLUGINS AT SKETCHUCATION Back in 2007, when SketchUp was acquired by Google, SketchUcation became the unofficial home of SketchUp discussion and support. What began with only 30+ members soon exploded to hundreds, then thousands to what we see today. Nearly 200,000 members!
plugin management Then came the need for some type of management system. Whilst having every tool imaginable under one roof is great it just didn’t seem wise to provide only a means of installing. So we created the Plugin and Extension Manager.....
In the middle of all this change something occured....ruby scripting. The SketchUp guys had the foresight to allow SketchUp to be extended further using plugins developed in the ruby programming language. Another explosion of creativity ensued where users learnt a coding language to create custom tools for SketchUp. With nowhere to really host these tools SketchUcation was again chosen as the home of the plugin. People created, shared, debugged and discussed plugins with new found zeal. Soon there was hundreds of plugins to choose from. Stars were born like TIG, Thomthom, Fredo, Tak2hata, Wikii, to name a few, who reinvented what SketchUp could do by adding incredibly powerful tools for users to enjoy. SketchUcation has always been considered the home of the SketchUp plugin. Nowhere is there such a diverse and vibrant group of programmers all with one common goal. To make SketchUp better. With the PluginStore things just got even better....
The Plugin Manager allows you to hotswap tools in SketchUp
The Plugin Manager is unique because it allows you to disable plugins using a clever solution. Disabling plugins between modeling sessions means you can customize your modeling experience dependent on the nature of your projects. This flexibility removes menu and toolbar clutter that in the past meant users forgot the location and function of less used tools. Disabling could not be easier. Simply swap plugins from the enabled column(left) to the the disabled column (right) and next time you restart SketchUp you have a tailored modeling environment.
www.sketchUcation.com
19