Dermot

"X2 will open the plan files right up to X10 so far but they will not open the layout file..." I can't think of any reason that your version of X2 will not open the layout files. If your layout file is somehow corrupt, then you probably will not be able to open it up in any version even if you were able to get it installed and running.

You can download the sample plan and open it in the program to see how things were made. I think most of the structural pieces were created using 3D Solids and some of them were then grouped into architectural blocks or converted into millwork symbols. I would guess that the tree trunks used as the support posts were imported from another modelling program but I don't really know for sure.

I think you are trying to do it the hard way. Instead of trying to get your 17 year old software to run on a new operating system (one that didn't exist when it was written), you should try bringing your old plans into your newer version of the software that actually does run on your current system. X14 should still be able to read all of your V10 and newer plan and layout files. You should expect to have a certain amount of manual work though because I am sure there will be some "glitches" after 14 versions. If you do find any serious problems, you should feel free to report these to our tech support team so that we can look into them further. If you have plans and layouts that are older than V10, you will need to use an older version of the program to convert them into a format that X14 can read. Any version between V10 and X8, including the client viewer, should be able to do this. More information can be found in this tech article: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00279/opening-legacy-files.html

Have you already tried our support knowledge base? We have a couple of articles specifically about dealing with performance issues: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00521/troubleshooting-slowness-in-chief-architect-plans.html https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00521/troubleshooting-slowness-in-chief-architect-plans.html#3DSlowness If these don't help you, I would highly recommend that you contact our technical support team for additional help: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/ Just as an FYI, this is user forum and probably not the best place to get help with these kinds of specific system related problems.

It's actually more common for Chief users to turn off the right-click context menu (or have it only show up on the second click) instead. This can be controlled in your preferences. This can make it easier to select objects with the right-click so you don't have to keep changing your current mode. When you are in a mode like place base cabinet, if you left-click, then the program will either select an existing base cabinet or place a new one. The right-click will then work like left-clicking while in select objects mode and allow you to select any kind of object. Turning off the right-click context menu prevents it from popping up and getting in the way of your right-click selection.

The spam has been removed. Please be sure and report any future spam if it shows up again.

The forum was flooded with spam (again) this morning. The best thing to do when spam shows up on Chieftalk is to report the post to the moderators. You can use the "..." menu at the top right of the post to report it. Unfortunately, I am not a moderator so I can't remove these posts or block this poster. I have reported it and I have also sent a private email to one of the moderators that I know sometimes checks in on weekends. I suspect that they are not in town so this spam may end up staying online until Monday. We will also look into whether or not we can make some changes to our forum software to try and prevent this kind of problem from happening again. I apologize to all of the legitimate forum users for this inconvenience. Thank you for your continued patience.

You should be able to use both versions of your program but you will not be able to open any files saved in the newer version (HD Pro 2023 or X14) in the older version (HD Pro 2020 or X12). The good news is that the newer version should have automatically created an backup/archive version of your original plan from the older version. This tech article should help you find your archived plan: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00099/accessing-your-archive-files.html If you need additional help, I would recommend that you contact our tech support team during their normal business hours.

How walls display in camera views (and this includes elevation views) is controlled by materials. Vector views, will use patterns and the other rendering techniques will use textures. So if you are trying to control the pattern of a wall material, take a look at the settings on the Pattern panel of the Define Material dialog for the material the wall is using. This support article has some information that might help: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00194/changing-the-direction-of-a-material-s-pattern-and-texture.html More information about materials can also be found in our training videos: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/playlists/170/materials-patterns-textures.html

I don't think this is anything new to X14. If your plan is very far away from the origin, you can have problems like this. The simplest solution is to use the edit area tool and transform replicate to move it back to the origin.

I have never seen this problem before. Please send this plan into tech support and be sure to include any other information you might have about the problem, such as if it happens when you first create the story pole dimension or only after you have made changes (and what those changes were). You can contact tech support here: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/

As far as I can tell, there is nothing wrong with your plan or the program (other than the fact that the default behavior can be confusing). Take a look at your picture of the "Door Face Item" dialog. Note how the "Down From Top" value is specified as "use default". When the hardware position is set to "use default" then you will get the default behavior. By default the program will try to put handles at the bottom of upper doors, the top of lower doors, and right at 36" for an oversized door. This is because full height cabinets can have lots of different door configurations. If you would like to turn off this default behavior, then you can type in the handle position to remove the "use default".

It is highly recommend that you keep angle snaps turned on. As Glenn has indicated, you can turn off the edit indicators in your preferences but this is also not recommended. There are a number of tools that are only available through the edit toolbar (some of them through the secondary "modes"). Currently, there is no way to tell the program to not display it, but you can make it floating instead of docked.

If you are in window mode, using marquee select should only select windows. If you are in door mode, using marquee select should only select doors. You can use this technique to select multiple similar objects and then you can open them for specification and remove them from the schedules. You can also use the match properties tool to select multiple similar objects. You can also use layer sets to only display certain kinds of objects to make it easier to select them. You can also use the schedule itself to select a group of similar objects by using the Open Row Objects tool. This might be the fastest way to remove all of a particular object from a schedule but it won't work as well if you only want to remove some of the row objects. You would first need to make them show in separate schedule rows. You can also use custom categories to mark objects in your plan as "existing" and then filter them out of your schedules. This would probably be slightly more work then just removing them from the schedule but it would allow more flexibility if you needed to ever show both the existing and new objects in separate schedules. There are probably a number of other tools/techniques that could also be used.

I suspect that this has something to do with your preferences as Ryan has suggested. You can always verify this by using the Reset Preferences tool to restore your preferences to the OOB defaults. If that does not work, then you might want to contact tech support.

I should have remembered this, but such is life. From the help article: Grid Rounding ensures that the sum of the parts of a dimension line add up to the whole distance. To produce this result, some sections may not be rounded accurately. This is the recommended rounding method and is selected by default. Distance Rounding addresses each section of a dimension line individually, which could result in the sum of these sections not being equal to the whole. This option is available for legacy purposes only and is not recommended. So grid rounding can round an individual value up or down so that the individual values will always add up to the overall values. If you switch to distance rounding, your dimensions may not add up and can cause problems for people trying to use them. The best way to avoid this problem is to make sure you have actually set the dimensions of your walls to what you want them to be rather than to adjust your rounding.

My best guess is that it happened when you imported some cad from another program. The Import Drawing Assistant has an option to move all of the data to the origin when you import it which can help prevent this. See picture below. Once you have a plan that is far from the origin it can usually be moved back to the origin using the edit area tool. Some more information can be found in this tech article: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-03124/troubleshooting-origin-error-messages.html

Please post the plan or send it in to tech support. We will look into the plan and see if there is something wrong with it. My best guess is that there is a bug somewhere that caused the lights to lose there attachments with the electrical connections. I know we had a bug in the past that caused this to happen when using the replace from library tool but this was fixed quite a while ago. It is possible that we have something similar going on. If you can figure out what is causing this, then please let us know.

"Polyline Solids" are just called "3D Solids" now. I'm not sure anything else that is different should really affect the article. If you are still having problems, then maybe you could explain in more detail.

CV-reno, there appears to be a problem with your product registration. Please contact our technical support department during our normal business hours for additional help in this matter.

I could not reproduce your problem and I could not find any bug reports in our bug database related to this problem. The only way I can think of that something like this might happen is if your lights somehow became unattached from the electrical connections. It is possible that if the connection is not attached to the light that simply editing the shape will cause it to attach to another connection instead of the light. This could probably also happen if the "light" is not really an electrical symbol as well. In any case, it is pretty easy to see if your connections are actually attached to the light. Just select the light and move it. If the electrical connection does not go with it, then it is not actually attached to the light. If your "lights" are really lights, and your electrical connections have become unattached somehow, then please try to determine how they became unattached. If you can figure out how to do this, then please report this to our technical support team. Please also include a simple plan and steps for how to reproduce this problem. If your lights are attached to the electrical connections, and the connections are joining together instead of staying attached to the lights, then please report this to our technical support team. Please include this plan and clear steps for what you are doing when they start to behave badly (or include a video like you did above).

Your plan is miles away from the origin. This is not recommended. Try moving your plan back to the origin and the 3D solids should behave better.

I don't remember ever seeing a problem like this. Post the plan or contact technical support.

Do you have a plan open? This looks like the default menu you get when you have no plans open.

I can't think of any way to make the program round 10' 4.94" down to 10' 4 1/2'. In the picture below, I set the walls to be exactly 10' 4.94" apart. The dimension displays as 10' 5" because I have specified that they round to the nearest 1/2". If you click on the dimension, it will display the actual value as 10' 4 47/50". You should either post your plan or contact tech support.