Dermot

I believe Joe and others are suggesting that you do a "save as" so that you do not write over the original file.  This does not mean that the new file can be opened in the older version.

Just as an FYI, the program will automatically create a copy of the original file and save it in your archives folder when you try to save it in the newer version.  If you ever accidentally open a file from an older version and then hit "save" you should get a message telling you that the program made this copy and where it saved it.  

By default the program should automatically check for updates once a day.  If you have turned this off or increased the time in your preferences, then you can always check manually using the menus:   Help>Download Program Updates.

As Eric has pointed out, Annotation Sets have been renamed to Default Sets in X12.

If you are trying to setup the active defaults for the current view, I would encourage you to use the Edit Active View tool.  This will bring up a view specific dialog box that should have a Selected Defaults panel that will allow you to modify everything you need.  The picture below shows what you would get if you are working in a plan view.

Yes.  X12 can open any plan or layout files written by Version 10 and newer which includes X1 through X11.

Once a plan or layout file is saved in X12, it can not be opened by any older versions.

I believe that you can rent X12 for as little as one month but you should probably contact our sales department directly for more information.

It kind of depends on how you broke it to begin with and what you did after that.

If the lines end points are already lined up, then you can just select a line and single click on the end handle.  The lines should join into a single polyline unless any of the attributes are different or if Connect CAD Segments is turned off.

If the lines end points are not lined up, you could drag one end handle on top of the other (with snaps on) or use the Intersect/Join Two Lines tool.

If you are trying to get rid of extra points in the middle of a polyline, you can use the Simplify Polyline tool.

If you want to add a new line to close up an open polyline, there is also a Close Polyline tool.

"I hope that at some point in time CA gives us move spacing control."

You can hope all you want but it would probably be even better to submit a feature request too.

Do you have "Use Plan View Scale" checked?

We are not as big as some other companies so we don't currently have the resources to do this.  You should always assume that there are no known issues and report any and all problems you find directly to our technical support team.  And never assume that because something was mentioned in a random forum post that we will know about it.

More than likely, this is a problem with your video card or it's drivers.  For more info see this help article:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00106/troubleshooting-3d-camera-view-display-problems-in-chief-architect.html

If all else fails, contact our technical support department.

Note defaults can be used to control how notes are created when you place a new one using the Note tool.  You can create as many different saved note defaults as you like in the same way that you can create different defaults for dimensions, text, markers, callouts, etc.  The first picture below shows the dialog you can get to through the Default Settings dialog.  Only one saved note default can be the active default for the current view which controls how new notes will be created.  You can also set the active note default in several other ways including using the Edit Active View dialog or the Saved Plan View dialog.

Note types can be used to organize your notes in your note schedules.  The program comes with some generic note types already setup (Bath Notes, Construction Notes, Electrical Notes, etc.), but you can create as many new ones as you like.  When you create a note schedule, you can then specify that it will only contain notes of the specified type(s) that you want.  The second picture below shows how you can choose which note types to include in your note schedule.

In X12, you can also create custom categories for organizing schedules that will work with all objects and schedules.  These custom categories are more flexible than note types but are otherwise pretty similar.

Just to be clear, note defaults are not the same as note types.

You can create new note defaults in both X11 and X12 through the Default Settings dialog.

You can only create new note types from the Note Type Management dialog in X11.

You can also create new note types in the Note Specification dialog or the Note Defaults dialog in X12.  Please take another look at the picture I posted above.

X11 abd X12 both have the Note Type Management dialog available in the text menu and toolbar.

X12 also has the ability to create a new note type directly in the Note Specification and Note Defaults dialog.

X12's custom schedule categories really have nothing to do with note types.

Select the terrain perimeter and use the Make Terrain Hole Around Building tool to convert the automatic hole to a manual one.  Then modify the shape of the hole as needed.

Try using Room Dividers.  You will find them with the other wall tools. 

Please note that room dividers will automatically be converted into interior walls if you change any of the floor or ceiling heights of your rooms in order to generate correct platforms.

Please be aware that if you have a plan created in the latest version of HD Pro (2020) that you will not be able to open up your plan in any version of Premier that is older than X11.  None of the Chief Architect products can read in plans that are written in a newer version.  So if you purchase an older version, you will probably have to redraw your plans from scratch.  Also, you should be sure that you only purchase a legal version that you could upgrade later if you wanted to.

I would suggest using the workaround that David mentions.  Your other options would include paying someone with Chief Premier to print your plans or renting Premier as Eric suggested. 

Another option would be to upgrade to HD Pro 2021 when it is released in the very near future because it will no longer have any printing limitations.

If you have additional questions, I would encourage you to talk with someone in our sales department.

Select the map and then the Open Symbol tool.

Turn on your origin and axis indicators.

Rotate the 3D data until it looks correct.  

You may want to regenerate the 2D block after so that it looks more reasonable in plan view.

Technically, X12 is still in the beta test phase so problems such as this should not be a big surprise.  Even though we are still in beta, we have had very few reports of crashes, lockups, or any other assertions/SEH type errors.  In my opinion, this has been the most stable beta version we have ever released.  

If you are having any problems like this, I would really encourage you to work with our technical support department to try and resolve these issues.  If it turns out that this is the result of a program bug (rather than a video card or system related issue), then we will do our best to get a fix into the program in the next available update.

There are a number of ways to change the reference display layer set (and any of the other reference display settings):

- Open up the Change Floor/Reference dialog.  You can click on the floor number button or open it from the main menu under Tools>Floor/Reference Display.

- Open up the Plan View Specification dialog by clicking on the Edit Active View button or open it from the main menu under Tools>Active View.

- If you are using Saved Plan Views, you can also right-click on the saved plan view in the Project Browser and modify the reference display through the Saved Plan View Specification dialog.

"...convert to a symbol and then rotate to match ceiling slope"

Or make it flush mounted to the ceiling.  You might notice how the ceiling registers will automatically rotate to sit on the sloped part of a tray ceiling.

As far as I can tell, you can already do what you want just using the cabinet tools.  See attached plan and picture. 

"I use latest version CA"

I was tempted to post an X12 plan but since I didn't really believe you I posted an X11 plan instead.  

"Would be great if Chief could add an extra function - like I mentioned - under "Toe Kick", they could do a moulding option (similar to the crown option)....would save a lot of time."

I'm not sure what you are asking for since you can already add horizontal moldings to any part of the cabinet.  In my attached plan, I set the toe kick depth to 0 and put a base molding at the bottom.

"Hope Chief is reading this"

Don't count on this.  This is a user forum and we don't have time to read every post.  If you want to make sure a feature request will get logged into our internal database, you need to post it on the Suggestions forum.  If you want to let us know about a program problem, you need to contact our technical support team and report it to us.  Any comments in other posts are not guaranteed to be seen.

furniture kick.plan

I believe that the program will only generate walls that it needs (at least in X12 it does but maybe you will see some differences in X7).  When I was looking at your model in a camera view, there were a lot of places that there would have been gaps between the roof planes and your walls had the program not generated automatic walls.

As far as the program generating walls that you don't want, I would make sure that the design is correct before I would spend time trying to get rid of them.  It does not look like all of your second floor walls are properly supported.  Assuming that you are going to align the walls between the floors, you will probably see a lot fewer automatic walls generated.

When you build an automatic roof, the program will generate attic walls to fill in the gaps between the walls you have drawn and the roof surfaces.  When you delete the roof planes, the program will usually remove these automatically generated walls for you.  If you edit these automatic walls, then the program will convert them to manual walls and will not remove them for you. 

My guess is that you did something to these walls which converted them into manual ones so that now you will need to remove them yourself.

You should not need to hit tab before hitting OK.

The Save Active Camera tool has been replaced by the Save Active View tool.  There is also a Save Active View As tool.  These tools also replace the Save Plan View and Save Plan View As tools.

The Edit Active Camera tool has been replaced by the Edit Active View tool.

These new tools will appear in the main Tools menu under Active View.  They will work for camera views and plan views so that you don't need different tools for different views anymore.  They will still bring up different dialog boxes depending on the type of view you are working in.  

Please be sure to always report any problems like this directly to our tech support team.  Don't just discuss these things on the forums or we may never hear about them.

And just as an FYI, hitting tab to update a control and change focus to the next one is standard Windows behavior and has been that way since as long as I can remember.  We generally don't try to document standard Windows behaviors since this would make the manuals much longer.