glennw

The arrow keys will move selected objects according to the snap Unit set at Defaults... Plan...snap Grid/snap units...snap Unit. This is true even if Use snap Grid/Units is unchecked.

Michael, Thanks. I was answering the other thread regarding shingles quantities on the roof and suggested using a new unit of measurement to convert sq ft to number of shingles. I then thought back to this thread and thought something similar may work here. It could be a handy technique for converting all sorts of things in the Material List like the number of ridge tiles in a length of ridging (which I pointed out in the other thread). You could have any number of "units" configured and then just pick the one you want in the ML eg. If you had a terrain feature that is natively reporting in area (say, square feet), you could have a unit of measurement called Paving Stones that would report in the ML as number of paving stones and we have the ability to switch the units as needed and the Count will auto adjust depending on the units. By the way, I just sent in a bug report pointing out that the shingle material IS meant to report number of shingles, but is reporting area instead. EDIT: I just used this same technique to demonstrate in another thread that you can include things like wallboard accessories, (screws, tape, etc) to automatically be counted in the ML.

And if that doesn't do what you want and you don't want to break the wall sections into 16' lengths, you can always create a new unit of measure and use that with "Linear Length" reporting. Create a new unit of measure being 16' long. When you generate your material list, use Linear Reporting. Click in the Unit column for the plate rows, and choose your new 16' long unit of measure. The Count will change to reflect the number of 16' lengths needed.

Yes, this can be done quite easily. You first need to create the unit of measurement you want. In this case you want Squares which is equal to 100sq ft. Excuse me if I have some of these conversions wrong as I normally work in metric!! Go to Preferences...General...Unit Conversion and create a new unit called Squares. Generate your material list. On the line that is reporting the shingles, click in the Unit field. In the drop down box, scroll and select your new Squares unit. The reported area (Count) will change to reflect the units chosen. You can even create a unit to report number of ridge caps based on the length of the ridge caps reported by the material list. In this case I have created a unit called RIDGE CAPS which is defined as 2 ridge caps to the foot. When I select RIDGE CAPS as the unit, the Count changes to reflect the number of ridge caps instead of the total length of ridge caps. Oh, and by the way, if you only want the roof materials reported in a material list and no other categories, that is easy to configure in Preferences. It is also easy to include proposed or existing roof planes in a material list by placing them on different layers and checking or unchecking the "Mat" column. You can also display the individual roof plane areas by using the standard Chief label macro %surface_area%.

A couple of things. Turn on auto framing. For the ground floor wall under the railing, uncheck Balloon Through Ceiling Above. Change the name of the mezzanine room to something other than Balcony, which is an external room type. You need to name it one of the internal room types.

Yes, Chief OOB uses the older simultaneous hotkeys method. This seemed crazy to me as they are so illogical which makes them hard to remember and even harder to physically execute. This is something I pushed for and a few versions back and they introduced the sequential hotkeys - much easier to assign 2 (can be 1 to 4) sequential keys which can be logical and physically easier to execute. You can even use a combination of both methods if you want - but much easier to use just the sequential hotkey shortcuts. It is very easy to remember and physically easy to use something like AR sequentially as a hotkey for Align Right than to use something like Alt+R+Ctrl (as an example) simultaneously. My advice is to get rid of all the Chief OOB simultaneous hotkeys as you can and replace them with 2 key (mostly)sequential hotkeys that make logical sense and are physically easier to execute.

Use Customise Hotkeys to assign you selected hotkeys to Align Left, Align Right, Center and Justify commands. I don't think these commands come as menu items as they are really editing commands that only appear on the Edit toolbar when text is selected. But hotkeys will work when any text box is selected.

Alan, Whatever dim defaults you are using at the time.

Alan, As I said... This also applies to a Doorway, which is a standard Chief door type.

That doesn't sound like a standard door to me.

If it is standard library window or door, you need Openings...Sides checked in your dimension defaults. You can turn all snaps off as you don't need any snaps to dimension openings. If it is a symbol or some other type of custom opening, that is a different story.

Alan, What is a "19'-7" Nano SGD"?

Scott, I don't understand your confusion. Ambient Occlusion, Edge Smoothing When Idle and Bloom options are available in the Camera Defaults dbx as well as in each placed camera dbx. Bump and Normal maps are available in the Texture panel of the Define Material dbx. Are you sure you are looking at X9 and not X8? By the way, once again....it is dbx, NOT dvx!!!!!!!!!!

If you still want those areas independent of REScheck, you can get them from the Material List:

Gene, I do not understand your post.

I would not use a roof to do this - it will most likely create too many other problems. The Molding Polyline is the way to go. Select the "outside room". Click Make Room Molding Polyline from the Edit menu. Enter a height that will cut through your windows and doors. Open the Molding Polyline Specification dbx and select your molding, etc. The molding will automatically break at the windows and doors and will not display a molding at the windows and doors.

Dan, It looks like a wall definition problem to me. In your wall definition, I suspect that you have all 3 wall layers marked as Main Layer. If so, only leave the central Concrete layer as the main layer and make the Insulating Foam Block layers as the Interior and Exterior Layers

In a blank plan. Build a Foundation. Draw your footings on the foundation level (level zero)

And along the same lines.... Why don't you try it and see what happens?

Use the Slab Footing tool (Build...Wall...Slab Footing) for both the perimeter and central footings. If you draw an enclosed space, you will get the slab and footings including the chamfer

I am not sure if it makes any difference, but do you have Save In Plan checked in the PDF Specification dbx?

Alex, You may be better of making it a symbol rather than a block.

You can "paint" the existing texture with a color in several ways. 1. Use the Material Painter in Blend Colors with Materials mode. 2. Open the materials dbx and on the Texture tab, use Material Color, Blend with Texture. There may be other ways as well, but that will get you going. Note that these methods will only "paint" the existing brick texture - they will not give you a new brick texture with a variety of different brick colors, sizes or patterns.

Does the Auto Adjust Default Glass Properties setting in 3D View Defaults make any difference? Just a stab in the dark.

Post the plan