Richard_Morrison

SOME wall elevations are showing the side wall extents in Layout, others are not. See example attached. The dining room looks good before I send it to Layout, then the wall line disappears. The bath next to it in Layout is okay. (BTW, the layout window is oversized to be large enough to include the side line.) These two views have exactly the same layer set. Any idea what might be going on? ("Room" layer is turned on in both.)

This could be a bug. (I've reported similar, and had it reproduced by tech support.) I have had similar instances where a copied anno set reverted to another, where it was just copied with some label changes. Making some significant changes or just deleting one and recreating it again helped. Not sure what the exact issue is, though.

It is my suspicion that the tradition of using all caps in drafting stems from the difficulty in producting legible lower case characters by hand.

 

I'm curious about the continuation of preferring all caps in CAD.

 

Is it a matter of that is the way it has always been done or are there other good reasons to continue using all caps that I'm not aware of?

 

My guess is that back in the day of offices where you'd have many people drafting by hand on the same project, it was easier to get a reasonably consistent look in lettering by using all caps. I can't think of a good reason today to use all caps, other than it's easier to demonstrate that you're complying with a minimum letter size requirement to the building department. (which is often set at 1/8")

Wow. Great tips.

Richard, I believe I recall checking into whether my machine was using the right graphics card once before, but can't recall the steps. I just looked under advanced settings, but I may be missing something. It may have "forgotten" when I upgraded to X6.

If you had X5 set to use the advanced graphics card on a per-program basis, it won't automatically happen for the upgrade, since this is seen as a "new" program, and has to be explicitly set for the new one.

EDIT: Here are some directions: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19474269.aspx

Are you absolutely sure that your laptop is using the Radeon graphics card for Chief? The reason I ask is that most laptops with a "brand name" video card ALSO have a built-in graphics card that the machine uses by default. I had this same issue with my two year old Lenovo, until I found out that you have to use the graphics software to tell the laptop to use the high-end card rather than the standard one, either on a global or program-by-program basis. When I set the laptop to use the higher end graphics card for Chief, all my problems went away.

Actually it wasn't "stealing, plain and simple". What it was

was a bona fide e-Bay transaction. I was in the market for

a product, did a search for said product, and found that

product up for auction. I bid on the item and was the winning

bidder. Did the price seem suspiciously reasonable, sure, but

it's not my nor any other e-Bay participant's job to research

the legitimacy of a product up for sale on their site. I wouldn't

be shopping there if I didn't think I could find an occasional

good deal. And in hind sight how much did it hurt the software

company? They ended up getting full market value for their

product which they would never have received if not for the

original e-Bay transaction, which was my whole point to start

with.

Boy, are you living in a legal dreamworld... While you might be able to make that claim for tangible property where there is a presumption of transferable title, this is not the case with software. And "I'm just stupid" probably won't be a good defense for a copyright infringement lawsuit, which Autodesk and other large companies have not shown much reluctance to prosecute.

Thanks for all the advice, I don't use this feature often so I will have to research some of these techniques to see what works best.  Ive never done the view to cad before. Richard, what did you mean when you said a zero depth back clipped cross section?

 

Well, I meant taking a back-clipped cross section and setting the depth to 0. If you need to get framing in, as Perry says, you can make it deeper.

Try a zero-depth back-clipped cross section.

The latest version of iPhones even has the local hotspot feature built in. But what if you are many miles offshore on your boat, or in a remote village of Nepal, trying to get your plans done? Oh, yeah, there are times when that hardware lock really comes in handy!

 

Hi Lew,

 

I as suggesting the hardware keys don't have advantages.

 

I was just mentioning that there are software key approaches that take next to no user interaction.

 

 

My daughter has a little battery powered device from Verizon that creates a local wifi hotspot using her cell phone account.

 

This might work in some situations where there is no direct internet connection.

 

Just a thought.

Some of the best architects I know still use a pencil to draw plans. While I think that they are missing out on some great time-savings and error-avoidance, a client who doesn't hire them because they don't like the tools they use is missing out, too. I would focus more on the quality of the relationship (e.g. how interested are they in what you have to say) and the design quality of past projects, than the specific tool they are using. If they don't have e-mail, that might be an issue. If they are using Vectorworks or Archicad or Autocad, rather than Chief or Sketchup, you shouldn't care, IMO.

Lew,

There is an amazing new invention called WiFi. You do not need to disconnect anything. I have never been to a client's home who didn't have a WiFi network, or at least an Internet connection. (And anyway, all my presentations are done online now. I don't go to clients' houses for Chief presentations anymore.)  And as harsh as it may sound, if you have multiple computers and no WiFi, you probably aren't really in business.

Lew,

You have never used this feature, have you? You can activate and deactive from the same machine now. So - go to client's house with laptop and use their wifi. (Or go to Starbucks for a couple of minutes.) Use laptop to deactivate desktop and activate laptop. Go to office and forget that you left your laptop at home. Deactivate laptop and activate desktop from desktop. Takes about 60 sec's max. They finally got this right.

 

As long as you have an internet connection

 

Barton:

 

there's the rub...

 

I don't have a network at home

 

so I would have to do the following:

 

1. deactivate desktop

 

2. unpack laptop, find desk space

 

3. disconnect internet from desktop, connect to laptop

 

4. after laptop boots - activate license

 

5. turn off laptop

 

6. disconnect internet from laptop, connect to desktop

 

7. pack up laptop

 

8.  upon return from client  reverse steps 1-7

 

I can also stop upgrading and continue to use Chief "forever"

 

I see a day when CA may start "terminating" software licenses

that are X versions old

 

Lew

"Am I missing something?"

 

Yes, you are missing a signature which tells us which version of Chief you are using.

This is a very helpful tool. Would have been nice to include it in the "What's New in X6" information.

 

EDIT: My apologies. I see that this was in X5, too. I didn't know it was there, either.

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.

 

Correctamundo. The entire X6 Data folder, including the User Library, is on Dropbox. It is really nice to add something to the library on the desktop at the office, and then find it in the library upon opening the laptop at home. If I tweak a toolbar or add a keyboard shortcut on the laptop, it is there at the desktop, too.

Thanks for the tip.  Yeah, my library is pretty darned big too from years and years of adding to it.  Sounds like manual sync-ing is the better way to go.

Well, I have about 1.2GB, and it takes just a minute or two in Dropbox, even with a relatively slow connection. I'd try it before you give up prematurely.

T2gsIGl0J3MgdHd1ZS4gSXQncyB0d3VlLiBJdCdzIHR3dWUsIGl0J3MgdHd1ZSEg

 

jon

Oh, a Mel Brooks fan....

Well, I decided to throw caution to the wind and put all of my X6 project files, as well as my User Data files, on Dropbox. This includes, of course, my User Library, archive files, toolbars, hotkeys, etc. So far, so good. It is amazing to make modifications at the office desktop or home laptop and just magicially have them appear at the other location. It's like I'm working on the same machine. Save a detail to the library, for example, and it is at the other location, too. I was a little concerned that the User Library would take a long time to sync due to its size, but it only takes a few minutes. I don't know how Dropbox does it, but I'm a happy guy. Of course, if my entire practice gets corrupted files, I'll be singing a different tune, but  there are backups of backups, so I'm not anticipating a major catastrophe.

I should point out that Dropbox is not deleting files that are over 30 days old. It is just deleting the older versions of files that were CHANGED more than 30 days ago. So even if your archives are in Dropbox, they probably will still be there in mulitiple versions.

Re: "too many files." One of the Park brothers suggested (on the old forum) turning on Chief's file locking so that Dropbox wouldn't have access to the file until it was closed.

Well, if you have to explain the joke...

I keep all of MY DOCUMENTS on drop box. I do not keep the CA program files on drop box.

I no experience keeping user library etc on drop box.

This seems a little unclear since it is most likely that your User Library is in My Documents, in the Chief Architect Premier X6 Data folder.

I read the code to say if the stairs are 30" or less then you can have open

risers and open risers are permitted with the sphere test

Well, if you are using 2X treads, then you have to kind of fill in the gap unless the steps have a riser height of less than 5.5", otherwise you don't pass the sphere test. So you need SOMETHING on your riser, but I would be afraid of using a partially closed riser. Seems like it would be a good way to get a toe caught in there during a fall. If the stairs have a total height of less than 30", then you can use open risers, of course.

Scott,

Just FYI, unless the stairs are going to be 30" or less in height, open risers are no longer permitted. Check the Code.

I am considering moving my X6 Data folder (with my toolbars, User Library, etc.) and my plan files exclusively to Dropbox, so I keep everything on my desktop and laptop sync'd. I have a little concern that my User Library, which is now over 1.3GB, is going to be VERY slow to sync, and that I may run into corruption of plan files if I am not accessing and saving them locally and independently of the cloud, since I tend to save every few steps. (Habit from earlier versions of Chief.)  Anyone experience problems with any of this?