glennw

Yes, and if you want plate height, eave overhang and eave height to stay the same, then you will need to change the rafter birdsmouth cuts - which Chiefs gives us you the Measurments section

By interactive floor plans I mean floor plans that you can edit, dimension, note, and change at will. Once you make a symbol of a building, it is static and cannot be edited. Why don't you try the various methods so that you can assess them yourself? Nothing like learning some new tricks.

No, a little bit of effort to understand what is happening will pay off. Do you only want a 3D view or do you want interactive floor plans? Try this: Draw a 3 storey building with 1 room on each level - using the derive floor from the floor below option. Just use the defaults for the platform levels. Draw a cross section so that you can see what happens as you change the settings. Go to the level 3 plan and draw a room that is like a seperate building from the existing one. It's floor levels will use the defaults which place it platforms same as the level 3 floor defaults. Now change the new room/building floor level to zero and set it's Relative Ceiling Heights to the default - they would have been at the level 3 ceiling height default. The new single level room/building you built on level 3 in plan view now appears as if it was drawn on level 1!

I would not recommend using symbols - not dynamic enough for me. It sounds to me like you are not understanding how floor levels work in Chief. You do not create floor levels on a building by building basis. Once you have say 3 floor levels in your plan, you can use those same 3 levels for a separate building and specify different floor levels (on a room by room basis) - thus, you could have 3 floor levels, but you can also have as many room floor levels as you want on each of those floor levels. The limit of 30 floors does not effect how many different room floor heights you can have on a floor. ie, you can have 3 floor levels, but you, can have many, many different room floor levels on each of those floors. I am probably describing this clumsily because of the "Floor Level" terminology. Have a play and post back if you don't understand what I am saying.

Customize Toolbars

Like this? You can do it either or both ways.

Are you talking about a single room or a multi-room house? You could duplicate the room/s as many times as you want in the one floor plan and use the Remember Zoom Rotation setting to quickly auto zoom to the appropriate Saved Plan View. And then maybe use a Style Palette.

Not exactly what you want, but you can do this sort of thing in the window dbx with Lites to give you a look alike.

You did say copy, so... what Chop said plus Copy and Point To Point Move

Build>Framing>Build Framing>1st>Subfloor for Floor 2>check Build Floor Framing>or better still check Automatically Build Floor and Ceiling Framing.

That is working as designed. Piers snap to centre of wall main layer - you can't change that behaviour.

Moving the landing and not the stair works for me. Make sure Bumping/Pushing is toggled on. Make sure Stair Sections Move Independently is toggled off. Select only the landing and use the arrow keys to move the landing towards the wall - the stairs should stay attached to the landing and both should bump into the wall and maintain their alignment. I don't think this is correct. I can see that your stairs sections are connected by the presence by their section numbers being displayed. Open the stairs dbx and you should see both sections listed.

I am on a mac and can't do anything with the .rar file.

Here?

Obviously not every color option! My best guess is that you have black selected for both Header and Header Text in Preferences. Changing this will not change any existing material lists - only new ones.

Don't paint the wall - try changing the material in the wall definition. You must have missed this when you were looking in the help file.

Can you be a bit more specific about what you want and what is wrong with what you present plan.

I would definitely use Terrain Breaks along with a standard wall (Foundation wall if you want a footing). One Elevation Point on each level.

And if you don't like maths, there is always the Scale button.

A couple of reasons spring to mind immediately. It is easier just to draw objects at their correct real size without worrying about scale. Easier to dimension. It is easier to change the scale in if you need to.

You have been missing something. Best to draw at 1:1 and then scale when sent to layout.

I am not quite understanding your problem. Select the room with the lowered ceiling and check Shelf Ceiling and change the ceiling height for the room.

Assuming you want a mono slab. Select the Patio room and change the Stem Wall Top to -2".

I think this is happening because the external wall of the house is being broken at the retaining wall because the top of the lower pony under the doors is too close to the bottom of the lower pony wall under the triple window. ie, not enough "throat" to make it one contiguous wall. The 2 parts of the external pony wall are joining at the retaining wall. Can you drop the footing under the triple window a little? That would then allow you to make the rear wall of the house one continuous wall and place the step where you want.

Are you aware of all the hatch patterns in the library?