Dermot

FYI, this has been in the program since before I started working here. It was originally put it in when Chief was still running on 16 bit machines and rebuilding floors and ceilings was actually pretty slow. There is very little reason to ever turn this off these days. I don't think the program turned this off. My guess is that you either turned it off accidently or started with a plan that already had it turned off. You can turn it back on in the 3D View Defaults:

Just a little math to help you see why these pictures take up so much space. Your pictures are 4032 x 3024 pixels each (and you have 4 of them). Each pixel has to represent a color value (RGBA) that takes 4 bytes of memory (or disk space if it was stored uncompressed). This means that each picture takes up 48,771,072 bytes (which is about 46.5 MB). Your pictures on the layout page are setup to be 4 3/4" x 3 9/16" which is giving you about 848 dpi. This is more than you need to typical printing. You can probably drop the image resolution down to 300 dpi (1425 x 1069) or even 150 dpi (712 x 534). This will take up a lot less memory and disk space.

We have had a number of people report random lockups. So far we have had a very difficult time trying to reproduce it in any kind of reliable way. We think it's a timing issue related to some low level system interactions. We have even added some diagnostic code to our in-house versions to try and help us find this problem but so far we have not had any luck. If anyone can find a repeatable case where X14 locks up, then please be sure and report this to our tech support team. If would be very helpful if you could include the plan you are working in and the exact steps that you are using to see the lock up. We would need to know what windows you have open and how they are configured (a screen capture can help with this). We will also need some detailed information about your system. Hopefully, this extra information can help us to determine the cause. When we get a fix for this, we will try to get an update out as soon as we are able. Please note that we are planning a 14.2 update that should be available in the near future but as of yet we still don't have a fix for this particular problem. You can find information about contacting tech support here: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/

See if this tech article helps: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00956/using-chief-architect-on-multiple-computers.html

There is also some more information about all of the lite settings in the program help. Whenever you are in a dialog box and you have questions about the any of the controls, you can go directly to the section about the dialog box by just clicking on the "Help" button.

"I may have to do the X8 save the plan to see if I can also open the layout file as well?" If your layout was done in V9.5, then you have to open all of your layout and plan files in any version from V10 to X8 and then save them in order to read them into a version that is X9 or newer. You will probably have to relink your layout to your updated plan files after doing this. Once you have done this, you should be able to continue to use your layout and plan files in your version of X10.

Please note that I was not endorsing or criticizing how this sample plan was made. Only explaining how it was made since that was the question that was asked. This particular sample plan was built a long time ago and then last updated in X7. We have had a number of tools that have improved since then. You should use whatever tools you think will work best for you and your needs.

"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.