IvanCyr

Hey Michael.... Crickets...that's what happened! LOL I desire a solution or the easiest workaround....looks like I'm awarded a workaround. Good enough for now :-) Any ideas?? Cheers,

Hey Tea Time, As I was pondering this yesterday, I was thinking that if I could define the room just a 1/2" bigger using the concentric tool, I could use a room molding PL, but your suggestion is better; use the Standard Room Area then "magic wand" it to a Mat PL. Thanks for your input. Much appreciated. Cheers,

In Chief "Help" it states, "A Materials List calculated from a room is created for only the contents of that room: wall materials are not included." Anyone know of a way to get it to assume the wall drywall layer without using the Mat List PL tool? Thx in advance.

Thanks Renee, I do a fair bit of work with Zapier...it works well. I've moved lots from there to Hubspot + Trello with Soundboard now...smoother workflow with less edits with updates. What in Chief might "ping" Zapier to get it to action?? Have you worked through that yet? Thx.

Hi Rene, Curious if you have found any further solutions?? I am investigating the possibility reading price data from a cloud source exterior to Chief? I look forward to your reply. Cheers,

This definitely gets my attention for a solution. What I would like to do, given a fairly accurate Mat List out of Chief, is to assign pricing to the suppliers. Effectively, I have a builder who uses certain suppliers. Say they have 10 wood floor types with unique pricing. I want to create a unique library folder with 10 flooring types. In the library, I want to insert code into the component pricing (macro??) that points to an external source in the cloud where the supplier updates HIS price. When generating a Mat List, I want Chief to "go" to the cloud and read that pricing for that unique floor and insert that suppliers price for the day. Anyone know a method with code to instruct Chief to look outside itself for specific pricing data??

Thank you for the reply. I'll send you an email tomorrow with more specifics. Ivan Thx Rene. I need a bit more sophistication but I love this idea you for going there. I'm sure it will come in hand in the future! I'll chat up Alaskan on this one. Thanks for the reply regardless.

To some of the more capable gurus within the Chief community in material lists and ruby coding, I have a complex .obj file imported into Chief. I have been able to import the entire model into Chief successfully with each component within the model given a specific material. I can "see" the materials in the %objectproperties% macro. First, I want to do the following: 1. Provide a numerical integer value to the individual symbol components in Chief of any given material (do this manually). For example, for an imported chair, I would like 4 legs identified (manually set) to which a specific material has been given. The seat cushion would be one item. The frame another item. The 6 vertical support rods of a 4th material defined within %objectproperties%. Effectively, I want to be able to create a hash of: item 1; material A; count a\ item 2; material B; count b\ item 3; material C; count c\ item 4; material D; count d\ Second, create some way to cumulatively add ALL imported .obj chairs (variable x) around a dining room table (repackage all chairs as an architectural block ideally or some other method) and provide a total count of each item. As a note, chairs may NOT be identical. Ideally want the attributes available in %objectproperties%. If not, then a second option would be to have components listed in the Mat List. I look forward to replies, Ivan

Likely more complicated...but maybe I'm overthinking this. I'm trying to ascertain in the Layout a mechanism to decipher when the %referenced_view_floor_number% is the "Attic" floor, that I can literally write "Attic" in areas in the layout at will. I can return the floor number ,but when I'm dealing with a 2 story home with a foundation, Floor 0 is the foundation, and Floor 3 is the Attic. I'm trying get either a counter to "see" the Attic (as it stands now I can ONLY glean an integer) or the other idea is that we duplicate/add/delete layout pages manually to the number of floors in the building and my template is designed to automatically sequence as much as I can automatically...and if I can get a comparator to the manual "label" which generally gives me pages, I can then create a script to test for "Foundation" at floor level 0 using %referenced_view_floor_number% and then compare %layout.label%'s # value (the value of #). I have the foundation figured out; easy since it is literally Floor 0; simple.....just don't know how I can "find" if the %referenced_view_floor_number% is actually the Attic. I'm thinking I can compare it to the manually set up pages whether I add or delete...the template is set up for a foundation with 2 floors. I can't see a way to glean the # value. Perhaps is as simple as the leaving the # symbol in the Label section and finding other text set up in a macro to fill in the titles using other scripts/macros??? Got some testing to do....

So I've been thinking....the smoke has cleared a bit... Is there a way to "find" a global variable where Chief assigns "Attic" to %referenced_view_floor_number% because clearly, in Chief, above your highest floor, the floor above is deemed "A" for Attic? Second, on the layout, I've set up a template feature where I use the # for page sequencing using the Label selection on the Layout Page Specification, and to be able to automatically create duplicate pages for Titles for Floor 1, Floor 2 etc. Is there a way to "capture" that # value as it starts with 1 then sequentially moves up one as an integer. On any particular page, can I "read" within Ruby code on any given layout page what that # is currently showcasing? This would be helpful but I can't seem to glean that info from anywhere. Thanks. Waiting to be WXOF....(an aviation term to be weather of zero visibility in FOG)

For what it is worth, setting items up on a separate layer set may be an easy solution for a stand alone fireplace. Items such as walls, countertops, roof planes with a dormer cutting walls appropriately etc. are the tricky items...an example would be that you can't place a wall over a wall placed on a separate layer....and keep the original wall...the new wall will overwrite the old one. Yes, you can get some items to work with settings with invisible walls or layers but often you will see the room moldings still showing and other such surprises. I find it much easier to save versions of the file....my method is to always sequentially sequence file versions using a letter sequence, and if I chose to stop at a version and desire to showcase to a client different options, then I add a number sequence (two digits always minimum to ensure alphabetical sequencing in the file names). You can always package these up to showcase in a single layout file which can make things easier when sitting down or Zooming with a client. Good luck!!

Yeah, that was what I was afraid of...so interesting to know that the info is tucked away in Chief somewhere but we have no means to access it through the Text Macro Mgmt....but I suppose I'd mess something up major if they let me play unsupervised in a bigger digital sandbox! I'll have to practice my sad puppy dog face when I inform the client of the limitation. Michael, Joe, and Chopsaw, thanks for your time...appreciate it immensely. I'm slowly getting more capable in these matters.

Thx for the question and the opportunity for me to clarify. When the %referenced_view_floor_number% returns ANY number that equates to the Attic floor, I want to know. In effect, I'm looking for a global value, or some referenced value I can glean within Ruby to make that evaluation (referenced floor = Attic floor) in order to trigger specific actions within Ruby. Thx.

So I'm still on the saga of writing code for a template. I've found good solutions to the above although, my wonderful operating 3 line roof label was scrapped by the client...admittedly, I wasn't able to find a control which would automatically point my arrow in the downward slope, I ended up using a layer control for that which was far from ideal. (Perhaps someone knows how to get a symbol arrow head and a continuous line character that populates into a variable length arrow [the ASCII code doesn't have the options]. Also a manner in which to be able to formulate the direction of the arrow. A review of the properties list on %object_properties% for a roof plane didn't give me any math upon which to create any logic.) On another note, I'm setting up some callouts on the layout for views sent to layout. For some unique labels, client want "Attic" to be an option. However, on a 2 level house with a basement, the Attic in Chief is actually Floor 3 if you pick off the %referenced_view_floor_number%. I haven't noticed a global variable to compare to in order to overwrite my attic floor 3 integer to an Attic "string". Any help from the gurus? Thx in advance.

Thanks Michael. On another note. I've found a solution for the problems above because I could NOT get spaces in the initial format shown as %automatic_label[/[^V()]+/]%. My solution was to nest the code. I first tested the view name to truncate " View" as Ruby didn't seem to want to accept the .delete_suffix command. The code was as follows: string = owner.automatic_label if string.match(/View$/) string[0..-5] else string end I then created a second macro and formatted it as follows: macros.remove_View.chars.join(" ").upcase() Effectively, the macros takes the string, splits it into an array of characters, and I join it back again adding a space with each character and ensure it all comes back together as uppercase. Perhaps this will be useful to others. FWIW Ivan