[TheForge] Sketchup Help

[Paul Novorolsky]

The Google Sketchup tool was mentioned here a while back.

After reading some more about it in the "Hammer's Blow", I downloaded 
the plugins from drawmetal.com for making scrolls and tapers (very, very 
cool stuff) I've found myself struggling on a few concepts.

I'm finding it cumbersome to keep objects in the same plane. While I can 
accomplish this by moving my view, and rotating and  moving pieces, I 
have this feeling that I'm "doing this the hard way".

I'll admit that I need a lot more practice, but I'm hoping that someone 
here can provide some help, and save me some time as I muddle through this.

Is there an easy way to keep things in the same plane?
Is there an easy way to "snap" (join) pieces together so I can easily 
group them?

There's probably more, but I don't want to be greedy :-)

I'm looking forward to using the drawmeteal plug in components to give 
me material lists and weight for a gate I'm designing (I consider myself 
an "Intermediate" level smith, and this will be the biggest project yet 
for me.

Thanks,
**paul