Barton_Brown

Jeff, I think this box only applies to OVERVIEW cameras. The OP said he was using the 'standard' camera, which I interpret to mean the 'Full' camera. The 'open below' area should show with the 'Full' camera.

Sherry, would you mind elaborating on the specifics of how you locate and then use the guidelines? I haven't used guidelines very often and I'm always willing to learn new productivity techniques. After you explain how you use them, it may become apparent that there is a way to accomplish this in CA just as easily, even without the offset tool. Thanks.

Do you mind posting the plan? What you are doing seems like it should work so there may be a plan specific issue.

Sherry, Thank you for your responses - they certainly help me understand how one could get frustrated by 'wasting time'. At the risk of repeating something you are already familiar with, and while it is not technically an 'offset' tool, were you aware that if you 'dimension' an object, click on the side you want to move, move the cursor over the dimension until it turns into a 'finger pointing hand', click the dimension value, that the new value you enter will resize the object to the new size. There are three icons on the dimension that allow you to selct which side, or both sides, should move. Again, not an 'offset tool' directly but might produce similar results.

I see no problem comparing program features. If CA can leverage the best of what the competition offers we obviously get the best of what is available. Sometimes it is necessary to help CA understand what the users think is important. I suspect that most of the CA developers are 'heads down' implementing an already long list of user requests. As users, it is our responsibility to help CA constantly review the priorities of what is on the list or to add additional items high on the list. If CA learns about great features available in other programs from users that have experience with these programs the more likely they are to take the requests seriously. [rant off]

You don't have to be a programmer to be able to specify a feature requirement. It is up to the developers to figure out HOW. As an aside, sometimes it is better that the user NOT tell the developers HOW to implement, just WHAT is desired. Telling someone HOW to do something sometimes narrows or limits the scope of what is truly possible. Just a thought...

'Country', Would you mind taking a little time elaborating on the specifics of where VW fails in 'productivity' - even a short list would be helpful. I'm familiar with what I feel are great productivity features of CA but have no experience with other programs. My request is so I can 'hone my promotion' to an architect friend on ACAD that I'm having trouble convincing he should switch. Thanks!

I was presently surprised by Dropbox. I was expecting to pay $10/month to get 100 GB of storage (first 2 GB is free). After installing Dropbox on three PC's and two Android devices, I was awarded with 50 GB of FREE storage for 24 months! More than enough for my CA needs!

Thanks Richard! Since my last post I installed Dropbox and have been enjoying the amazing speed of the file syncing. I made changes to the user_library on one computer and the sync had completed before I was able to get my CA license deactivated/activated on another computer! Thanks for posting to this thread - this is exactly the performance I wanted and was pretty bummed by the poor sync performance of OneDrive.

Found this on Wikipedia about Dropbox: The version history is paired with the use of delta encoding technology. When a file in a user's Dropbox folder is changed, Dropbox only uploads the pieces of the file that are changed when synchronizing, when possible. Given this intelligent approach, and since I would expect that for a lot of edit situations in CA that while the user_library is 'touched' but not 'altered', the use of Dropbox could be extremely quick and effective. Time to get an account and give it a try!

Richard, just to make sure I understand... You have your 'Chief Architect Premier X6 Data' folder stored in Dropbox, with a user_library file of 1.2GB and this 1.2GB file syncs in only a couple of minutes?! I'll check into Dropbox as it sounds like they are doing a much more intelligent sync than the blind 'upload the file' syncing that Microsoft is doing with OneDrive. Thank you for the info.

No apology needed and gesture appreciated.

At the risk of starting another hijacking... I didn't blame the Troll under the bridge, or anyone else. Hijacking is easy to do, I just prefer that threads stay on topic. That said, hopefully Jerry will rejoin us and get the conversation started again. He is aware that I posted his comments and my desire to re-engage the conversation...

This is Jerry's ( gwheckendorn ) response to a PM I sent him regarding whether his questions about CA were answered (he gave me permission to post his response): Good Morning Barton, I have no idea what 'hijacking' means in terms of thread manipulation...so I had/have no idea of what happened. To answer your question, I am still struggling with making the move after all the time and money invested in Vectorworks. However, I've been very disappointed in the lack of productivity I have with their product..even after joining Archoncad (which is a web based training site by Jonathan Pickup who has written several of Vectorworks training manuals) and reading a large volume of pdfs and watching tons of videos. That is what I'm doing now with Chief Architect. I started using the trail version of CA ver. X6, but the program crashed on my Macbook twice, causing me to lose all the work I did (each time when I went to work on the roof). Without the ability to save any work I've done, I had to start over. I was attempting to re-create a recent project I completed with VW so I could compare the excercise to what I know. Anyway, I still need to research/think about making the move, and the thread helped a little..but not enough to reach my tipping point! Jerry I would like to restart the conversation. This time specifically focusing on the productivity features that are bothering Jerry and that CA is, hopefully, better at providing.

After reading Doug's comment and and reading the following from the reference manual: You can offset a symbol from its origin point. This can make it easy to insert the object inside of another object, but does not affect the location of the bounding box or the 2D block that displays in floor plan view. and the comments about its use for such things as electrical boxes, I now understand why the present behavior exists and shouldn't be removed. Should an option switch be added to provide Joe Carrick's desired functionality? I'm now not sure since I've become very accustomed to holding down the CTRL key... OTOH, precise location every time would be much nicer than can be done with the CTRL key or having to use the transform/replicate function..

As you have determined, it doesn't appear that CA will import .stp files. So, what is a .stp file? The "STP" format, also called the "STEP" format, is a three-dimensional drafting specification used by a variety of CAD, or "computer assisted drawing" programs. Some users may run into difficulties opening or importing a STEP file into a standard CAD program. "DXF" files, on the other hand, are recognized by virtually all CAD programs, and the DXF format is the closest thing to a universal CAD specification. If you are given a STEP file, you may want to convert it to DXF for greater compatibility. Read more : http://www.ehow.com/how_8714018_convert-stp-dxf.html It appears that one option, since this is probably a one time conversion and CA will import DXF files, is to get the FreeCAD application: FreeCAD is a free, open-source CAD modeler available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. FreeCAD can import from and export to a variety of file formats, including both STEP and DXF. FreeCAD is available (for free ) at http://freecadweb.org/

Scott, Sorry you are annoyed, I was too after the thread got hijacked. How do you know the OP got his answers - he was just starting to ask questions about CA details when the bottom fell out of the discussion. He was looking for productivity improvements - didn't see much in the discussions that addressed that topic. I was hoping to get a better handle on how other programs compare - with some details - not just "I switched and I love CA". I have an architect friend that I've been trying to convince he should switch from ACAD to CA but I don't know ACAD. Thought this thread could provide some general insights I could leverage in our discussions. I've already given him my pitch - which was a good enough that now I do his 3D ray traces while he does the 2D CDs in ACAD. It is a sweet deal for me so maybe I shouldn't be rocking the boat except that it is a lot of duplicate effort which his business can't afford in the long run. My fear is that he would ask me about CA competitors - like Vectorworks and I would have no response. Moving on, was the other information informative? Would it have been just as informative if a minutes worth of effort had been spent starting a new thread dedicated to the new topic? Yes and Yes. Was this 'hijack information' as valuable to me as the original thread topic started out to be, No.

At the risk of annoying a few people, my preference is that as soon as a thread gets hijacked, the hijackers start a new thread and allow the original thread to return to the stated thread subject. Thread hijacking is easy to do, I admit to falling into the trap myself. I doubt the the OP really got an answer to his question other than a couple of posts saying 'switch to CA' without much discussion. I'm speaking out because I was interested in learning about what the competition to CA has to offer. That discussion got completely swamped out once the thread was hijacked. Anyone viewing the thread subject title would have had no idea this thread was about the need for a CAD 'offset' tool - who knows, you may have had additional contributors had the thread and title been consistent.

Lew, 3.4 GB, Wow! A library that size would definitely bring the 'cloud storage' approach to its knees, or maybe a complete face-plant. When I'm in Oregon, the cloud storage approach might be doable for a while but on Bonaire the internet speed drops by a factor of 10 so it definitely wouldn't work there, even now. Oh well, it seemed like a interesting approach... I'll still keep plan, layout, etc files in the cloud, just not libraries.

Bryce, the location where you tell CA where to look for the file is in Edit->Preferences->General->Folders->"My Data Folder:" The sync time issue is not because of the size of plans, layout, etc files. The real time hit comes from the size of your user_library. Mine is about 350 MB in size. It appears that CA tags the user library every time CA opens and at least the Microsoft OneDrive blindly syncs the user_library file even if it has not change, but just been opened. I may bail on this approach and just use the cloud for storing the working files and manually sync the libraries...

Bryce, As promised, I did some experimenting with syncing libraries with OneDrive - everything works as one would expect. I'm not sure yet why extra files showed up but my test was to make sure the user_library was in sync, disconnect laptop from the network, open CA, modify contents of the user_library, and close CA. The local user_library showed the updated date/information. I then reconnected to the network and automatic syncing commenced. The only gotcha that I can see at this point, and pointed out by Doug Park, is that it takes about 10 minutes for a complete roundtrip sync to occur so shutting down CA on a desktop and immediately grabbing the laptop and leaving the office will obviously leave you un-sync'd and could be leaving one open for library data corruption. As long as one allows time for all systems to be in sync before leaving the office with the laptop, one should be OK.

Joe, defect reported to Tech Support last night. Received confirmation this morning that the information was sent to the development team.

Doug, thanks for the response. The cloud software I am using is just the 'standard' OneDrive cloud software provided by Microsoft for Windows Update 8.1 . Good to know that this situation is not coming from CA. OneDrive has a 'wait' icon displayed in Windows File Explorer when synching is in process (the icon is diplayed at the folder and individual file level). I use this (plus a network monitor plugin) to confirm that the 'sync' has completed before turning off the 'source' machine. My connection to the cloud is 55 Mbit/sec download and 12 Mbit/sec upload although the actual speeds are determined by Microsoft's systems. As you suggest, I need to learn more about Microsoft OneDrive. Thanks.

Bryce, Not sure what is going on with the 'user_library' but was finally motivated to take a look at the data folder on OneDrive. To my surprise, there are multiple libraries out there tagged with the computer names (see image). CA must have decided to 'save users from themselves' by not allowing sharing of one 'user_library' between computers. Using the cloud to keep libraries sync'd may not work after all. I will do some experimenting today...

Andy, what are you doing? Trying to hijack this thread and take it back to the OP's original question?