HetrickDesign

I completely agree with this statement. It really annoys me having to go through all of the "commercial" content clutter trying to find residential stuff. Online Revit forums are almost all commercial users that can't help you out. You have a lot of control over elements, but dang, there's so many clicks involved that makes everything takes a long time. I took the time almost a year ago to learn Chief so I can do some simpler projects (or maybe eventually large complex projects too), and like a lot of the speed it offers. Now I just wish I could combine software features. Maybe someday in the future software will be something you can easily build yourself Until then, we have to keep pushing our requests to the software developers to keep improving.

You're welcome! I also tried ArchiCAD as a trial before deciding on Chief. It seemed like a much better version of Revit, but unfortunately not many people in the US use it compared to Revit. It would make it harder for me to find work opportunities when the software selection is a requirement. Most of my work I consider, and others already have, as being very high quality plans and 3D modeling. I see a ton of very sloppy modeling in Revit from other users, which I blame a little on having to custom model so much instead of having the residential content already available. Most Revit users continue to act like they have "THE BEST" architectural software available, when they have yet to try another. Another thing to consider is the annual updates in Revit are always like 2-3 features that have been years behind the competition, and the other handful are all engineering specific features. What I like about Chief so far is that their annual updates have a good list of new features, because they listen more to their users. Autodesk is such a huge corporation that doesn't care about it's users as much as they do about gobbling up other corporations to take over their competition.

Hi Michael. I'm a current Revit expert user that has taken the time to learn Chief for better efficiency. I totally agree that Revit does give great control over almost everything, but it's much better suited for commercial projects where you are an employee not worried as much about how long your tasks take. When you are self-employed doing residential, efficiency is key if you want to be successful in your business. There were a few large high-end flat-rate projects I worked on last year that had me seriously annoyed with how slow Revit is for residential. First of all, I have spent a TON of time creating my own content (doors, windows, lights, materials, fixtures, ect.) because OOTB there is a tiny selection available. Whatever is available OOTB is crap and more for commercial use. There's a few websites with Revit families online, but it's almost all commercial manufacturers that over-complicate things, or crappy families uploaded from other Revit users that require more work to make correct. Simply put, Revit is just not geared towards residential, especially small business users like us. When I discovered Chief, I realized I could have made so much money instead of spending my time creating residential content because Revit didn't have it already available. I recently completed 2 simple duplex projects in Chief, and I was very excited working in Chief the entire time! Everything is geared towards residential and so much is made to be very efficient. For a simple (Revit) recessed light fixture placed on a sloped ceiling, the 2D symbol wouldn't even show properly on the plans. I had to spend HALF A DAY working on my complex light family so it showed properly when sloped. Don't even bother searching for help online from others because the only responses you get are from users that only know how to do commercial projects, and most likely work for a large corporation that allows them extra time to figure things out. Most responses are like you are talking to a robot, and not helpful at all. With Revit, it feels you are mostly on your own if you work for yourself. ChiefTalk is amazing, and it's full of others like us that help each other out! Now there are plenty of things I love about Revit that I wish Chief would add, such as coordinated detail bubbles, callout details, better keynotes, better graphic overrides, better 3D section boxes, ect. But the speed of Chief makes it so much more worth it for residential projects! I appreciate all of the Chief users on this site sharing their knowledge. The only work I'm doing now that I continue to use Revit with are for my clients that I collaborate with that pay me hourly. Every other project I get from other clients are going to be done in Chief Architect.

I appreciate that Rene! I'll take a look at it when I get a chance. I also use Revit LT, and had full Revit for a short period of time. Full Revit uses Dynamo which is really powerful visual programming plugin and is used for some crazy commercial design projects. As I was searching for solutions to simple things, I would read on Revit forums that you have to use Dynamo. I tried it before, but it's sooo complicated and pretty much made for computer wizards. I felt like, there's no way in heck I am going down the rabbit hole of learning to use that thing for such a simple task. That's how I feel with Ruby in Chief at this point, but slowly I'll learn a little at at time.

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.

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?