glennw

Wynsong, that just turns off the icons in the menus Len, that will reset the toolbars back to factory default and lose any customisation. I'm not sure if it will turn the toolbars back on either - it might, I don't want to try it and lose all my toolbar setup. Looks to me like your toolbars are toggled off, try.......View...Toolbars

Rich, Yeah...mailboxes everywhere..

d dot, Well Doug gets it. As I said, it mainly applies to cad. If I am drawing a cad detail and I have many objects (lines, circles, etc) in that detail with different properties (layer, color, type and width), do I really want all those different lines on different layers? In this case, it would be too cumbersome to control them all on different layers, so I probably want them all on the same layer, but have different color, type and weight. Sure, I can draw an object and then change its properties afterwards. At the moment there is no way to PRESELECT the properties before drawing an object. All this asks for is a way to do this. If anyone has used Generic Cad or Visual Cad they will know how well this works. Admittedly the need for this ability is greatly reduced by the fact that we are doing less and less cad, but it is still a legitimate request so as to avoid post editing of drawn objects.

Doug, Yes, you have it correct. The 2 different methods to assign properties (color, weight, type and layer) are commonly referred to as either By Layer (Chiefs present default method) or By Object (the requested method). At the moment Chief can only be configured to preselect the By Layer method. What is being requested is the ability to preselect the By Object method. There is no question regarding editing these properties after drawing an object - that can be done in several ways. The request is for the ability to PRESELECT the By Object method. I should note that these 2 methods mainly apply to cad objects as they only have the 4 properties. The thread has really has wandered a bit from the original post.

Robert, He may have a roof but not a closed room. He could have drawn the roof manually or deleted the room definition after the roof was built..... We need Jay to come back with more info.

Help...View Users Guide and View Reference Manual. The Users Guide has tutorials. I am not sure that you would want to print them though - a lot of paper. I don't know if you can still purchase hard copies of these from Chief. Have a look at there web site.

You need to make sure that you have a room defined by the wall that contains the window or door. If you draw just a wall, or a room that isn't closed, then you don't get the icon. I think this is because Chief can't auto build a roof if there is no room definition. You can draw one manually by using Build...Roof...Gable/Roof Line. Resetting toolbars won't make any difference. The auto Gable Over Window/Door icon on the Edit Toolbar is not available outside the Edit toolbar.

Any specific questions?

In a 3D view, you need to turn on the display of the "Framing, Roof Rafters" layer.

I agree with this suggestion. It would be great to have 4 drop down boxes for Layer, Color, Weight and Type so that we can chose to place cad objects on any layer so that they have their own properties and don't inherit them from the current cad layer. And so that we don't have to do post editing after placing the cad object. WE would probably also need a couple of other commands/icons as well: A draw BY LAYER PROPERTIES or BY OBJECT PROPERTIES. Maybe the 4 property boxes only become visible and active after clicking a BY OBJECT PROPERTIES icon. It would also be great to have a MATCH PROPERTIES button in conjunction with the 4 property drop down boxes. Click the MATCH PROPERTIES button, click on an object in the drawing and the 4 property values (layer, color, weight and type) are entered in the 4 dropdown boxes, ready to draw a cad object with matching properties.

Todd, Change the Backsplash material for the default Base Cabinet.

Rich, Open the library browser. In the search field type MAILBOX. You should get the Mailbox and the Ornate Mailbox listed. Now, go across and click the Search Filtering Options on the very right hand side - it's the yellow page icon with a magnifying glass in it. Check Folders. All the mailboxes will display - there is about 10 of them.

Post a copy of the plan before running auto stairwell and we can have a play and see what was wrong.

I assume you are selecting the stair on level 1 and then using the Auto Stairwell tool and then getting this message? That tool is designed to build the level 2 walls to form the stairwell. You already have the walls in place on level 2 to form the stairwell, so no need to use that tool. Go up to level 2 and double click in the stairwell area. Define that room a Open Below. This will remove the floor and allow you to see the stair below on level 1. You will notice that after you nominate the stairwell area on level 2 as Open Below, go back down to level 1 and select the stair, you no longer get the Auto Stairwell icon on the Edit tollbar - because you now have a properly defined stairwell.

So that the material list will calculate the correct number of tiles after taking into account the joint width? Larger the joint width = less tiles?

Zowie, No need to edit the texture file. You can do it all directly with the material that contains the texture. Go 3D...Materials...Plan Materials. Select the material. Copy. On the Texture Panel Change the Angle. Do the same for the pattern. Change the material name if you want. OK out. The new rotated material will now be available in Plan Materials. Save it to your library for future use if you want.

You should be able to model a roof like that all in one go automatically. For the Verandah and main roofs (gull wing), open theWall Specification dbx for the verandah railing wall. Go to the Roof panel...Pitch Options. Check Upper Pitch. Fill in the other boxes as needed. Define the walls under the gables as Full Gable Wall in the Wall Specification dbx. Auto build your roof.

You have posted the .layout file. You need to post the .plan file.

Alan, Save it as a symbol and then rotate it.

Nicinus, There is no particular reason why your screen and printed line weights should be the same. Screen weights depend on the resolution of your monitor and zoom level. In your Drawing Sheet Setup dbx, the Drawing Scale should be 1/4" = 1'0". Not 1" = 1" as you show. This should be the default for floor plans if this is the scale that you would normally send a floor plan to layout. Secondly, with Line Weights toggled on, the line thickness in plan will change as you zoom in and out. The display of line weights in floor plan are not absolute in that they can be influenced by your monitor resolution. Zoom right in on a wall and see the line thickness increases - this assumes that you have some thick line weights in your wall definition and: There are some catches though, especially with walls. Wall lines (and cad lines, etc) can be defined by layer OR by the wall (or cad line) definition. I always like to define my wall layers Line Weight by unchecking "By Layer" in the Wall Type Definitions dbx. This then overrides the Line Weight setting for the Walls, Normal layer in the Layer Display Options dbx. Now, there is a further setting that can affect the display of line weights. Go Preferences...Appearance...Line Weights...Minimum Display Weight. Try setting this to zero.

Lew, Stop stalling. You have been going on about recordable macros for years. It shouldn't be that hard to come up with a couple of examples. I need to draw a wall on most projects and build an auto roof - how will recordable macros speed that up? There are things that are repetitive like typing text, taking views, etc, etc, but there are better ways to repeat those sorts of things than recording a macro. The library, cad blocks, etc, work quite well and are easier than macros. I'll wait for you to give me some examples - how about even 2 or 3?

All the Defaults are saved with the plan, so you only need to copy a template plan (or any plan) to another computer. Export and Import Hotkeys. Import toolbars with Toolbar Customisation. Preferences can be done manually. Graeme, I see you just posted as well - the Preferences transfer is always a pain, but doesn't take that long.

That's just it Lew - I am having trouble thinking of a use for such a feature.

Keep in mind that with this settings a line weight of 25 will print at .25mm thick which is easy to relate to the old Rotring pen sizes that us old fellas will remember.

Then you need to set your garage floor height to zero. At the moment it is set at -18 3/4".