HetrickDesign

Your macro's seem pretty sought after, Joe. It's good to hear you'll have them for sale again soon. I'm surprised Chief doesn't have any macros on the SSA download page. They are pretty essential. I always want to avoid having to manually type in an area or stair info since I fear it'll be incorrect if something gets moved in the design.

Thanks Mick. I asked Joe before but never got a response, so I thought I'd ask others. I saw Joe's post you are talking about, and I thought his seemed really nice!

Hi, I'm looking for some good user macros to make things easier for me, and am willing to consider buying some from anyone selling them. I need to be able to show area calculations of the building, site LOD, ect. Also need good stair labels. I may want others if I see what they can do. I don't want to be wasting my time going down a rabbit hole learning Ruby just yet, as I have very limited free time. Let me know what macros you have and your price.

I'm currently creating multiple Text, Note layers for each type of note. For example, I have 1/2" scale notes using 1/2" scale text style so the size of the text and bubble show correctly based on the drawing scale. The nice thing about putting notes on a separate layer than the text layer is that you can isolate just those notes if you want to change it's settings. Speaking of isolating, does anyone know a way to isolate a layer in Chief like you can in AutoCAD? Turning to "All Layers Off" and turning on a layer seems a little annoying.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the schedules don't really allow for custom grouping and sorting other then their basic options. I think to get your subtotals, you would have to convert to Rich Text, then copy into Excel. Then past back into Chief after you fixed the schedule in Excel. The major downside to this method is you really need to ensure the schedule is always updated manually.

Hi, my name is Dustin Hetrick, owner of nVisionTEK, LLC. I offer 3D modeling, drafting, design, visualization, and coordination services to architects, engineers, builders, and homeowners. I leverage the latest BIM (Building Information Modeling) software - Revit, Chief Architect, and SketchUP - to build your project virtually, before it's built in reality. I've have had many compliments and take great pride in delivering unmatched high-quality work to my customers. My goal is to ensure the highest satisfaction among my customers and continue delivering the best quality services you can find. Please take a look at my website www.nvisiontekbim.com. Let me know if you'd like to see examples of my work.

I use G-Suite for everything and love it since I use Google for everything, but if you work from different computers at times you may be annoyed with the slow uploads. You can't turn off the computer off until it's finished, or when you get to your other computer you will find that the file is not the latest version. Plus, I only pay $10/month for unlimited storage with the business plan. I also used Dropbox with one client up until a few months ago. I liked that it was faster at uploading, but didn't really like the user interfaces compared to G-Suite. The price of Dropbox was too expensive for the amount of storage you get. Currently I use OneDrive in addition to my G-Suite with one customer. I feel the same as I did about Dropbox. What's nice about OneDrive is it works well with Office products.

Sorry, I had to sign out and sign back in. It's there now. Awesome!

I don't see an upgrade button yet either. I just got the SSA earlier this month.

The preview looked great! I wonder if the custom landing tool also means we can do custom shaped stairs to cut around walls, ect.? The keynote feature looks amazing! Love the shower wall & door features toos! As well as the wall legend. I'm coming from Revit so I like that some of the "good" Revit features was included in Chief with x11. Overall I'm very excited to use x11!

Thanks Barb. I already purchased from another user on here.

Is your x10 still for sale? I'm interested in purchasing.

Is your x10 still for sale? I'm interested in purchasing.

You're in luck because they just announced their special pricing. Take a look.

I'm happy someone finally stated the same thing I thought about that! I've done trials of the 2 framing add-ins for Revit for a previous employer. So overly complicated, and that was when I was using Revit on a MAC with parallels, which was a nightmare in complexity and issues. Those 2 add-ins were about the same price as ArchiFrame. I would never spend that kind of dough, if it were for my business, unless I had builders specifically requesting panel shop drawings for framing, and I increased my rates to cover the cost. That's what so great about Chief.

I agree that no software is perfect. Even if we think it is we all slowly get annoyed with things. Hopefully you would agree with me that since Autodesk is such a corporate giant, they barely listen to their users' feedback. Each yearly release barely has anything new added. CA seems to have a large list of great improvements. Autodesk thinks because they are so popular that they can just barely improve the products, and people will continue to buy.

CA can show lines with custom letters that repeat. No such thing in Revit. AutoCAD, ArchiCAD, Chief, and Softplan all have that feature. It's difficult to use all kinds of dashed line styles in Revit to show a site plan. Sure, I went ahead and created a custom annotation family with custom letters, but that won't work for curved areas. A horrible work-around in Revit. Also, try placing a light on a sloped ceiling, and having it's 2D symbol show correctly in plan view. After years of cheating it, I went ahead and spent half a day modifying my recessed light family to show the 2D symbol correctly (flat) on the floor plan when the ceiling is sloped. Totally ridiculous! Believe me, I loved Revit for a while, but it's only efficient for square flat-roof buildings (boxes). I do very detailed modeling and very detailed plans, so I got really tired of spending so much time on "ridiculous" work-arounds and problems that I went searching for a better software suited for residential. Chief seems to be the one for me, at least so far as I'm learning it.

How are you getting by in ArchiCAD without temporary dimensions and not being able to add bullets to text? I was really surprised it did not have that for such a powerful software. I wanted ArchiCAD to be the software for me, but I doubt it would be considering it's lacking those features, as well as many other residential specific features. I'm a current Revit user trying to slowly transition away from it since it's horrible for residential projects (I'm an expert level user, btw).

I agree with you about Chief. I'm a new user slowly learning CA as I migrate away from Revit. A few hours a week on a training book, so no actual project experience yet, though. I did trials of SoftPlan and ArchiCAD before ultimately deciding that Chief is hands-down the most intuitive, with the best interface and vast amounts of great training videos. Softplan had a simple user interface (not saying it's better than CA). The huge turn off for me was not being able to edit anything without right-clicking. Also, you can't really select much in 3D to edit. It's like the 3D is only for visuals. Coming from Revit where I can can click on anything in any view, that was very frustrating. The reason I then considered ArchiCAD was to not have any limitations, as sometimes I do some large complex residential projects. I was very surprised, and frustrated that they did not have a single sample file for me to click on things to see how things work in the software. Every software has at least one. They pointed me towards an website ran by someone for a template, but it was a tiny "shed" and very messy layout for sheets and such. Ultimately, Graphicsoft was not as helpful as I wished, and the ArchiCAD interface was way overly complicated! If I learned ArchiCAD instead of Revit, I'd be much happier due to some really nice architectural tools. But not worth switching from Revit when there is Chief to choose. Revit....I used to love until I started getting tired of days of 2D detailing of sections of a 19k SF house. So, I started looking for software better for residential. Almost everything in Revit takes way too long, and there are so many limitations. You can't do lines with letters (i.e. site plans). Autodesk has grown to a huge corporation that doesn't listen to it's users. Each release barely has any new improvements. People just use it because it is marketed better. Now, with learning CA, I'm becoming very annoyed having to use Revit in the meantime. Hopefully my opinions help you feel better about liking Chief for what it is, and what it does best.

Is the software still available for sale?

Is the software still available for sale?

Is the software still available for sale?

Is the software still available?