CJSpud

Something I actually stumbled onto some time ago.

As Scott says .... easy peezy. All you have to do is move your mouse cursor over the lower part of the graphic in the bottom right corner of the dbx and click in the area where you want your new layer. Then go to the upper left and click insert and it should put the new layer at the bottom of the group. Watch the bottom right graphic and you'll see the arrow move from the top layer default position down to the layer area you clicked in.

What I did was attach an image then I drug it up and placed it behind (to the right of my first text) ... then typed some additional text and it was underlined without me thinking that I selected underline for that text. The 2nd bit of text was'nt intended to be a link ... that's why I don't understand why it is underlined. All I was doing was dragging attachments behind text to test the dragging functionality.

Test ......more stuff...........CA_ X8Hotkeys.pdf -Wall Niches with Hole in Wall.calibz Not sure why I got the underlines above .... maybe I accidentally selected it? Tried to highlight it and un-select "underdline" and it didn't work. Edit: When I selected Edit in viewing my new post, I am not seeing the underlines. ???? 2nd Edit: Yet my first edit of my origninal post is till showing the underlining while I am not seeing it on my screen while editing. As an experiment with this edit, I have selected "more stuff..........." and clicked the underline tool to see if it accidentally goes away.

Me teaching someone else something ..... ??? If it works for you, you're welcome.

Chopsaw: After watching Scott's video and experimenting with defaults, etc., I decided to try to edit the line lengths and bearing angles for a 4-sided polyline box to see how editing each line would work such as you talked about in your post. First I made the PL box close to the dimensions of the lot survey I am working with ... none of the end lines are true east/west and none of the side lines are true north/south. Starting with one of the lines (Selected Line), and working clockwise around, I adjusted the lengths and bearing angles according to my client's lot survey. After doing the first 3 sides, the 4th side was perfectly adjusted without me having to mess with it. A very fast - easy process. Not sure how much faster/slower it might be to the line input method but it certainly works well IMO. Thanks again for your post.

Hi Scott: You're up early too. Great video. I "think" you have demonstrated what I was trying to do quite well. This a.m. I can duplicate what you've done precisely and get the line lengths and angles to display exactly as I wanted to .... using the polyline box to create the property boundaries. Yesterday .... something was mis-behaving and it was giving me fits. I usually don't like to post simple stuff like this on Chief Talk because it takes a bunch of time to type things in, capture some images, etc. But, I did it anyway. I was using both the CAD defaults and the Number Style (PL box dialog ... bottom left corner) in my effort to get length and angles to show right. I was using the Plot Plan anno set and I even have a layer set for the Plot Plan and within that layer set, a CAD, Plot Plan layer in which I have a specific Text Style setup for 1" = 30' text heights which is what I'm using for this project. Today ... all seems to be working .... yesterday, well .... it was like your Chargers losing to the Broncos or Raiders or some other arch rival. After reading Glenn's and Michael's posts, I thought I needed to take a trip back to Site Plan "first grade" and try to figure out what's going on with my process - how I thought things worked. Glenn's first comment about the Number Style and what it means didn't sink in at first but in reality, Chief has it spelled right out in the dbx: I even looked into Tim Munson's CA book to see how he walked through the process. I found something in there I need to follow up on ... actually didn't get all the way through his method but will get back to it and finish reading/evaluating as soon as I can as he's very thorough in going through the process of Site Plan development step-by-step. Thanks again for the video ... nice to have something perk me up in the morning ... besides the coffee and a few chocolate chip cookies.

Glenn/Michael: Thanks for your responses. I erred by saying I used the CAD box tool. It was the "polyline" box tool. I guess I should have done the lot lines the old fashioned way .... with a start point and then input the distances and angles for each of the four lines. OK ... did that, the survey closed nicely. Still not getting the distances and angles to display as I want them to. I need to figure out how to do that. I'll go do some homework. Guess I am getting rusty. Thanks. Not sure if I understand what benefit there is in being able to display length/angles etc. of a polyline box if it doesn't work "as expected". I used to know this stuff (or I thought I did).... hmmmm. Time to check the manual, video(s) and/or help database.

Also note in my first post ... first image ... that I pulled an End to End dimension across and it displayed as a decimal value. Why the other won't is beyond me. Could I have found a bug?

I have a project that has a lot that is almost perfectly square with respect to N/S/E/W although the actual lot survey shows the E/W side lines are not perfect true North nor are the N/S end lines perfectly E/W. I was going to get lazy and not even show the bearing angles of the property lines ... just the property line lengths in decimal feet to two places. The lot's end lines and side lines are perfectly parallel with each other so I just plan to use the CAD box tool to create the lot lines and not worry about the lines being exactly as shown on the survey. So, as shown in the first image below, I have drawn a rectangular shaped box (159.13' x 279.00'), selected the box and clicked on Number Style and changed the display to decimal feet (and a little later on the selection for the quadrant bearing angle option); then clicked OK. The result is that the distances is displayed as feet and inches, not decimal feet. And later when I clicked to display the quadrant bearing angles, they do not show correctly either [the north end line is 0° rather than N90°E]. As you can see in the image, the end line length is displayed as 159' 1-9/16" rather than 159.13'; and the bearing angle is shown only as 0°, not as a bearing angle as I noted above. Also note that in the Polyline Specification dialog box (dbx), both the values (Length/Angle) are correctly shown in their respective entry boxes when I have selected the end line for the polyline box and then clicked on Selected Line. As another experiment, I clicked on the CAD line tool, then the Input Line information tool, but for some reason I cannot get the dbx to change from Absolute Location to Polar ... it is locked (grayed out) such that I can put a check in the Polar option even though that is the option I have selected in the Number Style dbx. Everywhere I can think of I have made sure that I have decimal feet (for this Site Plan) checked as how I want it to display yet I seem to be missing something somewhere that it's like not being able to see the forest for the trees. Any ideas anyone as to where I am messing up? Thanks. PS: I know I can "wing it" by just manually adding the decimal feet distances to the lot lines (the PL box) but figured that just having Chief do it for me was the way to go. Maybe this is a dreadful bug .... but probably it is just me missing the obvious. By the way, my CAD Defaults for CAD, Plot Plan look correct to me as well. This is like trying to find a needle in a haystack!

I wonder if you tried to cleanup the corner connection with the wall corners tool, if that wouldn't help? Haven't run into that before but I don't do that many plans with crown moulding at the ceiling.

Very nice ....

Rob: I will try to remember to do that. I am really looking forward to working on this project. If I had $799,000 laying around, I would buy my client's existing home (for sale). It sits right on Idaho's famous Salmon River near Whitebird. Here's a few photos from the realtor's website: My client's new home will be built on a lot overlooking another of Idaho's famous rivers ... the Clearwater. His lot is not on the water but he's only about 5 minutes away for when he wants to go try for a steelhead. He's had to blast 900 cubic yards of rock to make a building pad for his new home. Here's what his view will look like ... looking west down the Clearwater River valley towards Lewiston, ID:

I will be starting on one with a very similar great room and timber trusses next week.

I've had lots of weird things happen with situations like that. Getting the truss base correct is very important. More information would be very helpful .... most importantly the plan as Gene suggested.

Thanks Joe ... meant to tell you that way back when you answered my last questions and guess I forgot to.

Did you designate that wall as a "high shed/gable" wall? Don't know if that will make a difference but might be worth a try without seeing your plan.

Thanks Joe. I think I understand most of your system much better now ... other than all that stuff you do with your macros etc. I remember attending a GoToMeeting Scott hosted where you demonstrated on screen some of what your are talking about which, I suspect, you've refined to be much better. Do you use the Chief Designer and Client tools information to populate your project information macros etc. or do you use some other method to put that information into your project plan?

Joe: Trying to understand your Layout Template process a little better in regards to your response to Steve's question. Are you telling Steve that in your Layout Template, that you have sent "all" of your CAD details, whether it be for the foundation, windows, doors, roof, etc. CAD Detail Plans to the Layout Template such that that is the way "each" CAD detail is linked to your respective CAD Detail Plans (foundation, windows, doors, roof, etc.) such that you don't have to copy each of those CAD Detail Plan files to the current project you are working on? That suggests to me that each of your project folders has only two files in them - your Project.plan file and your Project.layout file. It also suggests to me that you would have to go into your Project.layout file and delete all of your CAD details that do not apply to your current project. Is this correct - the way you do it? Also, if you modify or make improvements to any of your CAD details, do you typically do it in the respective CAD Detail Plans instead of accessing the detail from your Layout Template (now saved as your Project.layout) while working on a project? Seems like updating your CAD details to your CAD Details Plans can get a little quirky depending on how you are getting into/accessing the CAD details and then making sure what you just improved on is updated to the proper CAD Detail Plan file. Maybe I am just not clearly thinking my way through the process. Also, I am curious as to about how many different CAD Detail Plan files you have/use (beyond what you already mentioned) and about how many CAD details you have created/saved in each ... more or less? I am thinking "bunches" but maybe not. Do you have a plan notes and text CAD Detail Plan as one of your many categories or do you keep that stuff in your Project.plan template on Floor 1? I suspect one time or another you've answered many of the questions about your methods in the past. Thanks in advance for answering them one more time if my questions are duplicate of what others have asked you previously. I haven't been spending quite as much time on ChiefTalk as I have in the past so I know I've missed some good stuff from you and others. To me this template stuff is potentially more important than doing a good job on setting up layer sets and anno sets ... but maybe not ... maybe they're both equally important when thinking about how to be most productive.

Thanks Joe .... appreciate it.

What I really like about Blue Beam is that you can zoom with the mouse wheel. I just have Blue Beam View on my computer. One of my business associates who does HVAC designs sends me his designs via Blue Beam invites for my review.

Larry: In a test plan, I can build the rafter tails as you show in your first image. I haven't been able to do that with your plan in X8 ... not sure why at this time. Probably something very simple. Those are the kind you lose your hair over.

Taking Sherry's lead, I created a 4-sided model with 2x6 framed walls, 109-1/8" tall. Framed all 4 walls and locked their framing. Then I created a new floor mirroring the 1st and in the Structure dbx I made the floor 24" tall and zeroed the floor system (framing & finished materials) as well as the ceiling drywall. Then on Floor 2, I selected all 4 walls and framed them and got the results as show below. I did not make the 2nd floor as "open below" and the results "seem" to be OK. Next, I built a 3rd floor, mirroring the first two floors and had to re-input the floor framing elements and the ceiling drywall in the structure dbx. This is what it looks like with the walls and floor of the 3rd floor framed. Great suggestion Sherry.

Jeff: Are you implying that every time you open a new Rich Text box that you already have text ("4x post" .... ???) showing in the dbx? If that is the case, just go to your Defaults > Text > Rich Text and just delete that "stuff" and hopefully you're good to go in the future for every time you use Rich Text thereafter. Maybe I am totally misunderstanding what you are talking about. If that isn't it, can you post an image of what you are getting? If you do a good job of setting up your Anno Sets and Layer Sets and the associated defaults for each, you should never have any issues. Then it is up to you to know which Anno Sets and/or Layer Sets you want to be working in so that your text defaults are applied correctly.

Very nice.