glennw

Mark, What you say is correct. My point is that you were originally saying that you wanted a single keystroke shortcut and using Enter (or Space) to complete the shortcut. This can be done. In your case it is complicated by the fact that you have reassigned the Spacebar (I assume). This also does not preclude you from having a shortcut like SS or SSS (one or the other). The vast majority of my shortcuts are 2 letter which is almost enough to cover the majority of the most used commands. I also have several 3 letter commands which I hardly ever use. The beauty of the 2 letter commands is that they can be logical, like: ZA zoom all ZP zoom previous LI draw line IL input line HD hinged door SD sliding door

Mark, I am not 100% sure that we are understanding each other - but I could be wrong. When I say you can have a shortcut using "A+Space", this means that when creating the shortcut, you press the Spacebar this still requires you to press A and then the Spacebar when executing the shortcut. This does not preclude you from have shortcuts like "AA", "AAA", "AAB", "AAC", "ABB". Is the one thing that is precluding you from doing this, the fact that you have mapped your Spacebar to your Escape key? I guess that means that you don't use you Spacebar as Select. If so, and if it were me, I would leave the Spacebar as the Spacebar. How did you add the Shift key to your shortcuts without using a simultaneous shortcut?

Mark, You CAN do this. You can have single letter shortcuts followed by the Spacebar. You can then us that single letter shortcut in another 2 or more letter command. ie, you can have "A,Space" for one command and "A,X" for another command. Is that what you want? Shortcuts can get quite complicated. You can use either sequential shortcuts or simultaneous shortcuts (using the Control Keys+letters). Or... you can even use a combination of both in the same shortcut.

It's amazing how fast you can things built by just using the auto features of Chief . ie, my template plan allows me to draw 3 or more closed walls and without doing another thing I get a 3D model that has floor and ceiling platforms, a roof, external dimensions, the room has a fill (confirmation it is a closed room), wall, ceiling, floor and roof framing, foundation, attic walls, etc...etc, as well as things like auto elevations......and these are just the basics..... As I start to edit the basic plan, things auto update and rebuild...like external dimensions, foundation, roof.......

A quick fix is to select those text boxes on Page 1, and on the Line Style panel, uncheck Bumping>Cad Stops Move.

Or use the cabinet tools to make the vanity and insert a sink from the library.

Kurt, I think I have the answer. Working in X10. There is a little triangular room attached to the upper right hand corner of the circular wall near the centre of the building. Select one of the walls and designate it as a No Room Definition wall. Delete the 2 room divider walls in the big room at the top of the plan. Chief doesn't like island rooms. In this case, the island room is connected to the exterior wall with a room divider, so I am not sure of the exact reason for the odd behaviour. You are using an older version, so it just might be a bug that was fixed in later versions.

Define Material dbx for the brick material>Material List panel>Material List Calculation>Area. Generate ML. Similar for the lap siding if you want that to report as sq ft instead of linear feet. If you want to change the units in the ML, double click the line item in the Count column. Click on the dropdown and select an area format you prefer.

This can happen when placing a wall from the library when a wall type with the same name already exists in the plan and both walls do not have the same wall definitions. You can tell when this happens by the way Chief appends and underscore and number to the wall name - ie "_2". This means that if you place a wall from the library and then open that wall and change any of it's definition parameters, and then try and draw another wall of the same type from the library, it will be automatically renamed. Renaming wall types can get a bit messy because you can change a wall name directly in the library, BUT, doing this will not change the actual name of the wall definition. You can also rename a wall type in Wall Type Definitions dbx - this will not change the wall type name in the library. I tend not to keep wall definitions in the library, but rather keep them in the drawing (my default plan). I am not sure what process you have followed to get your results, but the above may help a little. I am not sure about the material changes - I haven't had time to look further.

If you end up with an angled dimension and you want it to be orthogonal, and you don't want to muck around with dimension settings you can always use the Make Parallel tool and click on an object that is drawn orthogonal.

You can make interior or exterior walls go to a custom layer by specifying that layer in the Interior Wall Defaults dbx, or the Exterior Wall Defaults dbx - on the Layer panel. Also applies to the other wall types like foundation walls, deck railings, pony wall, etc.

Don't the settings on the Jamb panel of the Door Specification dbx do what you want (there is an Inset setting amongst others). Similar to the window settings on the Frame panel in the window dbx. The big problem is that the door jambs are a rectangle and can't be changed to a different shape as is needed for things like rebated door jambs.

Graeme, Why so? The rotate plan tool is the dangerous one!

Those little round ones are Extension Line Anchors, they are not the actual snap types. You can change how many display at one time from the history of snap points in Preferences. Preferences>Edit>Snap Properties>Options>Objects In History. You can turn them off by toggling all of the 3 Extension Snaps off at Preferences>Edit>Snap Properties>Object Snaps>Extensions. Or, you can toggle all Object Snaps of which will include the Extension Snaps.

Chief will not auto build a roof over a deck with the OOB settings. Open the deck room dbx. Structure panel, Ceiling, check Roof Over This Room. But...do you really want a deck room? A deck is normally constructed with spaced timber decking - not waterproof!!! You really just need to use a normal room type and work out how you want to waterproof it and define the floor construction accordingly.

Quite often, I find you need to use negative numbers because it is a juggling act to get the mullion depth to disappear. You just need them to meet somewhere so that the mullion disappears - which can be anywhere in relation to the wall. The reference point for the values is the wall surface which means that the values will vary as the wall thickness varies. I believe a value of zero for both will make the mullion the same width as the wall. If you want to move the outside mullion out away from the wall surface, you need to use a negative value. To move the outside mullion in towards the interior, you need to use a positive value. The best way to see what is happening is to draw a section through the door and make some changes. You will see the mullion react to the various inputs.

It may also have something to do with the Recessed Into Wall setting - not sure about that though. And quite often, I find you need to use negative numbers.

I see this on the forum post: and this after I copy and paste into a Chief text box: I am using Chief Blueprint on a mac. Could there be a link between the macro's and what Michael posted?

When you select the arch and get the movement cursor (or the 2 headed resize cursor - depending on which grip you hover over), drag one side of the arch to resize it. You will then be able to click on the arch width dimension and edit it's width.

You can place 2 doors in the same space. Drag one above the other. Mull them together. Play with the sills, Mullion Depth, etc. to get things looking as you want. Here is a very quick one:

You can do superscript for 1, 2 and 3 using a Special Character Global Macro. The catch is those three are the only numbers available. Michael, In your numbers posted, how come 1, 2 and 3 are at different heights?

Or, even easier, just draw it in metres in the first place. Northings and eastings are specified in metres as standard.

You will need to scale the mm drawing by 1000, not 100 to get the correct size in metres.

Is this what you want? The end of siding wall over the terrace is lining up with the upper pony wall which is proud of the stone below - hence the extended fin. I deleted the upper pony wall and dragged the white fascia across to replace the upper pony wall. I then used the Edit Wall Layer Intersections tool to clean up the wall layers in the corner to match how they would be built.

Simple. Turn snaps off. Also, keep in mind that Snap Distance is measured in screen pixels. This means that the more you zoom in, the smaller the snap distance in real world units.