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Everything posted by Renerabbitt
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You can use notes, they publish their xy position, then interpolate length and angle with macros
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change your window default, so that when you change to your brick sill, it isnt default.
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If I had to venture a guess from Chief’s perspective... and I realize this may not be what people want to hear... they likely assume that a perpetually licensed, older version of Home Designer is sufficient for the typical hobbyist user. To put it in practical terms, when you’re designing your own project, you’re potentially saving several thousand dollars in professional design fees. In the broader context of a construction or renovation budget, those fees are often one of the smaller line items. For example, I recently spent $24,000 on drainage work and concrete steps alone. In that scenario, $600 for software is arguably one of the least expensive components of the overall investment. Hell I spent $600 on the materials for 6' of redwood fence the other day. When viewed against the total cost of a project, the software expense becomes relatively minor... especially considering the level of control and savings it can provide over the life of the build. If I were to guess, I am sure ai and cheaper e-design services are not helping the hobbyist cause.
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Where does X17 pull "Item" information from in a fixture schedule?
Renerabbitt replied to LCDesign's topic in General Q & A
Also FYI you can rename your Column To Include to %"Label";"Item"% so that the schedule prints Item but reminds you that its from the label- 4 replies
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- schedule problem
- component labels
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"Chief Architect Save as PDF" landing folder issues - please help!
Renerabbitt replied to deaconjj's topic in General Q & A
are you using managed mode? -
I would think typically people use the automatic stair opening tool in the edit toolbar
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has to be your browser, works on chrome.
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260122 (2).mp4
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because the most common reason for such a change is that you want your interior wall type to create a structure and surface at the exterior of whatever discrepancy there is between rooms...i.e. drywall over framing when a floor is sunken. It's not specifically reverting to interior-4, it is reverting to your default interior wall
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Select the roof plane and use the union tool. You may have selected the polyline and used the union tool
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You can edit the entries you can also adjust the timeout parameters: I tend to think 5 min is too tight as i may lookup some reference info for 10-15 minutes and I am still actively working but not moving the mouse.
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yup this is what I would do
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260121 (5).mp4
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I understand the desire for more frequent patches under a subscription model, but I don’t think that expectation aligns with how this software—or this company—actually operates. Chief isn’t a lightweight or modular app where features can be pushed live with minimal downstream impact. It’s a professional production tool built on nearly 30 years of accumulated code, with an ecosystem that’s tightly coupled to documentation, training, and support. Every feature change or behavioral adjustment ripples far beyond just the executable. Frequent incremental patches would require: Updating Help documentation and knowledge-base articles continuously Retraining support staff so they can correctly diagnose issues per patch version Updating internal training materials and SSA workflows Preparing trainers for live classes, webinars, and year-round training events Managing version fragmentation across users on different patch levels That kind of cadence would almost certainly increase confusion, not reduce it. Support would be flooded with “what changed?” calls, trainees would be following outdated instructions, and users collaborating across offices would constantly be out of sync. For a company whose business model is support-centric, that’s a serious risk. On top of that, it’s easy to forget that every change to the professional product must also be evaluated, segmented, and deliberately restricted across the Home Designer product line. Features can’t simply be “turned on” everywhere. They have to be gated, versioned, documented, and supported differently depending on the SKU. That alone adds significant overhead to every single update. There’s also the reality of cross-team development. Many features don’t live in isolation—they depend on work being done in other development areas. You can’t safely release Feature A if it’s meant to integrate with Feature B, when the team responsible for Feature B hasn’t completed or stabilized their code for the next major version yet. Releasing partial integrations mid-cycle is a recipe for instability and technical debt. Chief’s development model is regimented for a reason. Features are bundled, documented, trained, and supported as cohesive units—not dripped out in isolation. That discipline is what allows them to support an enormous range of users with consistency and reliability. Breaking that rhythm just to satisfy a “faster updates” expectation would undermine the very thing people rely on Chief for: stability. Comparisons to AI software or modern SaaS tools also miss the mark. Most of those platforms are cloud-native, modular, and not burdened by decades of legacy workflows—or real-world production liability. Chief operates in a completely different category. The cost of instability here isn’t a bad UI tweak—it’s lost time, broken workflows, and real-world consequences. Subscription doesn’t automatically mean “ship everything immediately.” In this case, it means predictable funding for long-term development, structured releases, and a support ecosystem that actually knows what it’s supporting. That’s not falling behind the future—that’s respecting the complexity of the present. If anything, I’m far more impressed that Chief manages to evolve at all while maintaining a system this disciplined, with documentation, training, and support moving in lockstep. That’s something very few software companies—AI-driven or otherwise—are capable of doing well. BTW Chief, if you are reading this, despite my grandstanding brand ambassador post here, its about dang time for that X18 Beta...you can see we are all getting a bit twitchy?
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For those of us whose careers Chief has quite literally enabled, we are SO GRATEFUL. For anyone here, the subscription model has been around for years, so this person likely meant to post in the Home Talk forum which just changed to subscription for the HD 2026 software version. For reference: Autodesk Revit — subscription-only AutoCAD / AutoCAD Architecture — subscription-only SketchUp Pro (current versions) — subscription-only SoftPlan Professional (current versions) — subscription-only Cedreo — subscription-only RoomSketcher Pro — subscription-only Coohom Professional — subscription-only Planner 5D Professional — subscription-only Archicad--Subscription only Imagine picking a vendor over 10 years ago and praying they stay relevant over the years—no, over the decades. I get it: you want your developer to survive by taking a thousand chances that the fleeting consumer will buy into the next version, constantly gambling on how much development budget they can allocate so you won’t give a negative review because that the feature set isn’t exactly what you wanted. What a miserable experience it must be to have such ungrateful customers—customers who apparently don’t want you to eat. I challenge any consumer making these claims about the subscription model to go develop a product for a consumer base and then try to guess the magic number needed to fund the next iteration. I dumped roughly $108K into development of my next product this year, and it was frightening—just guessing what numbers you might realistically hit. There is a reason Vail Resorts constantly raises day-ticket prices while keeping season passes comparatively low: it’s far easier to budget for planned improvements when you have fixed, predictable numbers. This isn’t a cash grab or corporate bullying—it’s necessary. They are in their fourth year of trying to develop a cloud service for us customers, while doing everything they can to keep SSA costs low, all while dodging a million cloud-computing copyrights and trademarks. And speaking of inflation—to those who think it’s worth mentioning—think back for a second and answer me this: has the price of this product tracked with inflation over the years? Not even close. Also, last I checked, subscriptions are fully deductible, while purchased-to-own software is a capital expense that typically requires depreciation. It’s literally a write-off—so why is anyone complaining? This whole debate reminds me of how difficult it is to promote a professional product on Amazon, where you can’t qualify the customer and someone trashes your product with a bad review because the delivery driver dented the box. I have consistently saved more in efficiency from each version’s feature set than I have paid in SSA, year over year, for the last 10 years, and my prices have gone up at a rate greater than the cost of this software. Historical data from X17 alone showed roughly a 20% efficiency improvement for me. Keep going, Chief—I owe you.
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You would need a pretty custom macro that to examine upper and lower wall layers and text label or you would need a custom macro and 2 schedules. Where 1 schedule ignores schedule- callouts of the other as to avoid duplications This video is paywalled but you are doing something similar in that you want a schedule-callout from each schedule but you dont want the callout to populate numbers from both Alternatively, I am curious if simply using a callout with a detail would work better. In terms of it being a plan-set to build from, the builder will need to see a detail for your pony wall connections and relative heights anyways, so you could just drop a callout on each wall:
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Yes you can Any mesh can be converted into a millwork/fixture/furniture/hardware symbol category, and any of those symbol categories can be used as a drawer box:
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This is from my paywalled member section, 16 Min video, I set it to public for today only Jan 20, 2026
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Save-As.mp4
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Wall Area- is there really not an automated way to do this?
Renerabbitt replied to SC_drafting's topic in General Q & A
Why not just use the material lists? Otherwise macros..the all encompassing conditional macro would be worth charging for. The simple macro that you use at risk of your own peril is %upper_layers[0].area.ceil.round% keep in mind this wont report correctly for gable ends unless you have it set to balloon frame -
How do you add molding to an interior door
Renerabbitt replied to DonnaMarie's topic in General Q & A
a photo of what you are trying to achieve would be helpful -
Need help with using ramp for sloped floor
Renerabbitt replied to Evolution's topic in General Q & A
is your signature up to date? I might make it more clear that you are on X12 if that's the case -
How To Tie-In First and Second Floors Together?
Renerabbitt replied to DHerb2014's topic in General Q & A
Edit/Edit Area (All Floors) Draw A Marquee around all elements you intend to move Either use transform replicate or start dragging the center handle of your marquee and hit tab to enter coordinates -
Need help with using ramp for sloped floor
Renerabbitt replied to Evolution's topic in General Q & A
260115.mp4 -
FREE Webinar - Schedules and X13 Sneak Peek (CEU Eligable)
Renerabbitt replied to ChiefArchitect's topic in Announcements
What version are you on?
