Boring Site News

Site-wide refresh/update - Aug 30, 2021

The old Google Sites classic architecture, used by the original SketchUp Sage website, has been depreciated as of September 1, 2021. The original site has been converted to the new Google Sites build that should work better over many different devices - PC, phone, tablet.

Along with the site conversion, missing images/GIFs/embedded features have been fixed. Some new images and tutorials have been added.

Most dead links have either been fixed or removed. The exceptions are links that point to SketchUp Pro forums threads dating back to @Last days to the early years of Google ownership. Google removed all that material from Google Groups during a period of 'housecleaning.' I'm hoping to retrieve the material at some point in the future as the SketchUp team did obtain a copy of the material. So those dead links will remain as placeholders.

More site graphics/theming will be done after publishing in addition to checking for bad links. My Tweaking tooltip pages are getting more examples. And in the near future that will include a Scaling technique I developed in 2006 to model small parts (with edges less than 1/16") and has been miscredited to someone else eight years later. Pity, as the technique can be used for more than working with small parts...

Site-wide reformate/update - Aug 30, 2015 12:10:5 AM

A few months ago, a major, site-wide update was started.

An eye on updating and adding new links has always occurred on a daily/weekly basis. But with the growth of this site content and with the end of Google redirect links this summer of 2015, 3 years after the sale of SketchUp to Trimble, it signaled a good time to update a number of things on this site.

The Tips & Tricks page has been broken down into subpages and the content of formerly linked forum threads has been migrated to this site and links within those dated forum posts have been updated. Also, a comment feature has been added to the old forum posts to give the public an opportunity to keep those old posts updated and relevant.

More content has been to sub-pages of How do I make SketchUp run faster? and all other pages have been checked and reorganized and updated too. If something has been missed, alert the site administrator.

FAQ site to support the SketchUp help forum - Apr 17, 2011 10:35:56 PM

A while back, a new FAQ site, S'more stuff, was launched to support the Google SketchUp help forum.

The site's custom search engine many be useful to many SketchUp fanatics as it is directed to only search notable SketchUp sites.

Revamped 'Faster' page - Jul 12, 2010 7:3:3 AM

Viewing the page How to make SketchUp run faster has become easier. The content was split up into 10 subpages for faster navigation/page loading speeds. Also, the content on many of those pages has been expanded. One of the new features is a new computer performance speed test by forum member mac1.

New pages added by our Sages - Nov 09, 2010 4:18:55 AM

Recently two new Sages were inducted to the Google SketchUp forum, Aerilius and Colin Holgate. Aerilius has begun his tenure by moving his SUWiki article, Running SketchUp on Linux over to the SketchUp Sage site and will begin to keep it updated over here.

Also noteworthy is George Knowles' Print to Scale article. He included lots of pictures to help people speed up the learning curve on this somewhat finicky process.

Site translation - Dec 19, 2009 7:2:58 PM

On December 17, 2009, Google integrated a site translation feature into Google Sites. Now anyone viewing this site using a non-English browser will see a translate button in the lower, right corner. At the moment the translation element features 51 languages.

Building Maker - Nov 14, 2009 6:58:54 PM

A new Building Maker page has been added to the Sage. It mainly features tips from NuclearMoose.

New SuWiki location - Sep 18, 2009 8:58:43 AM

Site developers have added some new management tools which enable cross-site searches. So the SUWiki pages were moved to new location and given a face lift.

Along with the new search feature, the sidebar links to the SUWiki will remain. The two sites will be connected like a string of pearls.

Many links have yet to be updated. So people may be zig-zagging between the two locations for a few days.

Notable updates - Aug 08, 2009 6:23:30 AM

A new update features is on the homepage. All contributors can add significant updates and additions now in one place.

The site always had a feature to list recent changes. Unfortunately, it lists ALL changes, most of which are rather boring as they involve formating tweaks. It would be a shame to bury a new section, like the one on 'Other' programs that play nice with SketchUp.

Initially, the 'Other' section began on the 3D Warehouse page as several programs liked to mention they could import SKP files from the 3D Warehouse. But as more and more programs accept SKPs, that section deserved to live on the Resources page.

If anyone wanted to keep updated to the content updates through this list via an RSS service, try using the list address.

SuWiki reincarnation - Jul 05, 2009 5:35:36 AM

While nothing particularly news-worthy has been done to this site, much has been happening behind the scenes. First there is a bunch of site maintenance. Namely, all the pages have been updated with new bits of information and visual changes caused by Google Sites updates necessitate coding tweaks to many pages on several occasions.

And now a new sidebar addition has been released - the SuWiki. The SuWiki itself is not new. Back in 2006, Chris Fullmer launched the original SuWiki. Over the years it has encountered some problems with spammers and being inaccessible. Someone suggested moving over this valuable resource to the Sage. Being that seemed to be a very good idea, all the articles and major bits of information have finally been moved over here.

The format is not a typical Wiki. The number of site pages has been minimized to efficiently contain the SUWiki articles (and help reduce site maintenance.) And most all the articles have become individual files housed by Google Docs. Google Docs is an online document, spreadsheet, presentation suite. Its features are very similar to document programs most people use on their computers. Anyone who wants to contribute only needs to ask through the collaboration form. Those people will be added as article collaborators.

Over time, more site administration functionality should be added to SUWiki as Google developers add extra features to their online suite of programs.

A little disrupted service for Internet Explorer users - Apr 20, 2009 8:30:40 AM

For a few hours Sunday afternoon, April 19th, IE users could not see Sage content that is hosted on Google Docs files. The affected items were the animated GIFs and the two wiki documents. The viewing problems seemed to be fixed.

New troubleshooting guide for Mac - Apr 12, 2009 10:26:8 AM

SketchUp group member bob has begun a Troubleshooting Mac wiki to help solve the fun problems some Mac-users have encountered while using SketchUp.

Birth of the first wiki - Apr 03, 2009 12:50:11 AM

Matthias Basler's great tutorial - first published in the 3DWarehouse discussion group -

Tips for modeling buildings for Google Earth

has been turned into a Wiki and is on the Google Earth page.

New Comments page - Mar 31, 2009 7:53:27 AM

People now can add comments about this site.

Fixing Problems - Mar 19, 2009 7:40:4 AM

A new page called Fixing Problems, that addresses some "popular" problems, is now in the sidebar. The subpages still need some work, but the content is still useful.

Sometime in the near future feedback pages will be added for comments about this site and personal commentary about graphics cards. In SketchUp Google Groups has a Graphics Card Feedback page but editing it can be annoying.

New navigation pages - Feb 16, 2009 5:18:0 AM

Some new pages live in the navigation sidebars. Google Earth and SketchUp Sages have been added.

Fixing Problems will appear sometime in the near future. That section will contain pages on display and tool problems caused by deficiencies in the graphics card/driver, program installation and basic system troubleshooting, and a catch-all page for modeling and other problems.

For now, much of that content can be found back in the FAQ area of the SU Group Discussions. Look at FAQ for Fixing Problems, FAQ for Installation Issues, and Graphics Card Feedback.

A section on Dynamic Components should find it's way here too.

Public debut - Feb 12, 2009 5:6:55 AM

It's February 11, 2009, 10:00 PM MST, and this site has finally gone public.

The SU-user created Group FAQ pages outgrew the capabilities of the Group Page editor. So it was time to move to a new and more stable home. The extra elbow room and features over here are nice.

Who would have guessed Gully Folye's suggestion to create FAQ pages would lead to this?

- catamountain