Another copy and Paste post

[Anonymous]

Hi guys, 

I've read several posts on how to copy and paste and watched a couple of videos and I can't copy and paste a square!! I'd like to move on from using Sketchup but I'm not impressed so far.

1) my sketch is active

2) I can select and copy the square

3) if I right click off to one side there is NO paste option, nor does ctrl-V work

I've had the paste option appear twice in the last hour of trying after a save, but it's not consistent.

I've been using PCs for 3 decades, blah blah blah, but it's ridiculous that something this simple doesn't just work, or is not intuitive. Perhaps I'm being dumb...

[TrippyLighting]

Maybe this little screencast will help. After selecting sketch objects, right-clicking and selecting "copy" to pressing CTRL-V you need to either left-click into open space, or press ESC to unselect the previous tested objects.

Then you can right-click again in the open space and select "paste" or CTRL-V.

[Anonymous]

Hi Trippy,

thanks for the screen cast but I'd already clicked off to one side tried enter, escape, etc, but the paste option just is not present on the right click menu! Copy 'n paste has been something I've been using since Dad bought a 386 about 25 yrs ago! it's going to be something simple and stupid.  It's also a little worrying that there are so many hits if I search on this problem.

[etfrench]

Are you in Edit Sketch mode? 

[Anonymous]

well, I thought I was in edit sketch mode.  The screencasts I've watched etc clearly show to look for the 'Stop Sketch' icon. However, I'm not so sure. I definately had the Stop Sketch icon present, but it appears I can only paste within the same sketch. If I've had 2 sketches present (by accident), the stop sketch icon is present but if for the wrong sketch. Does this make sense? 'cos so far it doesn't to me!

[Anonymous]

I created two separate sketches, copied the shape from the second sketch and clicked stop sketch, in modelling mode I right clicked on the 1st sketch in the tree, selected edit sketch and then pasted the copied second sketch into the first sketch.

[jeff_strater]

@Anonymous, you may have to record a screencast for us to figure out what is happening.  Definitely, if you have copied sketch geometry, and are not currently editing a sketch, you will not see Paste in the context menu.  You have to have an active sketch to paste sketch geometry.

Jeff

[Anonymous]

Hi guys,

I've recorded a screencast for you, I can quite understand if you've thought I'm an idiot so far, but...watch the movie.

And is it me, or is the screencast site full of add crud? annoying and unprofessional to say the least, not what I'd expect from an industry leader.

[jeff_strater]

@Anonymous, it looks like the screencast did not make it into your last post.  If you are using the "Insert Screencast" feature on this forum, you have to hit the "Insert" button at the end.  It's confusing UI...

Jeff

[TrippyLighting]

Following this link is a tip on how to create a screencast and actually paste it into a post so we can see it 😉

Not sure what you mean with "add crud". Are you referring to this web site ?

[Anonymous]

Hello again,

Ahh, I forgot the 'insert key' Try again.

re 'Add crud', yep, the screencast website constantly spams me with adware, thank god for antivirus. Worse than PirateBay.

[jeff_strater]

Thanks for the screencast.  A video must be worth 10,000 words...  

Well, I admit to being confused.  This should work.  At first, I thought it was because you have selected geometry from multiple sketches:

But, then, I tried that, and it worked fine.

Then, I thought that maybe the sketches were on different planes, but I tested that, and it also worked fine.

I did notice that, just before the end of the screencast, paste is suddenly available:

But, I'm not sure why it appears then.

Can you share your design?  I'm curious now...

Jeff

[Anonymous]

Hi Jeff,

sorry for the slow response, is this the link you need? Also, is it possible a slow internet speed contributes? I only have 2mB

http://a360.co/2ekW2mx

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

Ah,now I get it.  If a video is worth 10,000 word, then the model must be worth a million...

The missing link for me was that your model is not just sketch geometry, it also has BRep geometry:

This is interesting because we have been talking about fixing this workflow issue very recently.  What is going on here is:  The default selection filters, even when you are in sketch mode, include body geometry:

so, when you do a window select, as in your screencast, you are also getting the body faces and edges:

When you do "Copy" at that point, you are copying not just the sketch geometry, but also the faces/edges.  But, when the Paste command is deciding whether to appear in the menu, it looks at the clipboard, and asks whether the clipboard contents are valid.  Since you are in sketch mode, and there are faces selected, the answer is "no".

I agree that this is confusing, and can probably be classified as a bug.  As I said, we are working on a fix for this.  The fix will likely be changing the sketch filter to only select sketch geometry while in sketch mode.  There are just a few questions that need to be answered about how some commands might work (Sketch Project, for instance).  In the meantime, you can work around this by manually changing the selection filter:

Hope this helps,

Jeff

[Anonymous]

Jeff,

you're a star, give yourself a payrise! (hmm, not that simple methinks). Thanks for the screencast too, it isn't a simple workflow and why it's like that doesn't make sense to me. I can understand getting stuck on something difficult but on a copy 'n paste?