Dermot

I don't have access to X12 at the moment but you may be able to get the results you want by either using the tab key to select the actual sink (instead of the sink base) or by just placing the sink as a free standing item and then dragging it over the cabinet.

The perspective crop mode was removed from prior versions of the X12 beta but was put back in right before the public beta was released. Unfortunately, the documentation was not updated at the last minute to reflect these changes. We apologize for any confusion that this may cause.

"3D uses the Texture settings." It all depends on your rendering technique. Some of the rendering techniques (like vector views) will display patterns and edge lines and others (like standard or PBR) will show the textures.

There are also a number of good training videos and articles about layer sets (most of these have not been updated for X12 yet though): https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/playlists/100/saved-plan-views-layers-annotations.html https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/5483/understanding-layer-sets.html?playlist=100 https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00765/using-layer-sets.html https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/category/91/layer-sets.html

There are a number of different ways to change your active layer set for the current view in X12: - If you are using the Active Layer Display Options (ALDO), you can show the layer set combo box. It should be there by default in X12. - You can use the Edit Active View tool to change your current layer set along with any of the other default settings your view is currently using. - You can add the Layer Set combo box to your toolbars using the customize toolbars.

Please see this post with some more info about copy and paste in place:

Maybe you are thinking of note schedules?

You may find this help article has some additional info. Door and drawer fronts are basically handled the same way. https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00040/using-different-door-styles-on-a-single-cabinet.html

It will reset the system provided layer names back to the default names. It should only be needed if you have manually renamed system layers or if you are bringing forward some very old legacy plans. Also, when you have questions about controls within dialog boxes, you can always just hit F1 or the Help button.

I recommend that you leave "Connect Island Rooms" turned on. The program puts them in because having unconnected island rooms can cause a multitude of problems with room definitions which can affect things like living area calculations, floors and ceilings, room moldings, etc. If you don't like where the program puts them, then just move them or draw your own and then you will be able to delete the ones the program put in. If you don't want to see them, then just turn the layer off. If you want to see your room divider walls, but not the automatic ones, then just put them on a custom layer and turn that layer off. Please remember that just because they are hidden they may still affect things like bumping, snapping, dimensions, etc. For this reason, I would keep them turned on in your working drawings but turn them off in your construction documents.

" I am talking about the beading profile on the door itself where the frame meets the center panel. With the method described I am assuming it can only be square." You can't easily add an edge profile or bead to the cabinet face frame. You can often sometimes fake it by adding the profile to the outside door/drawer/panel symbol. Your panel sizes will be off though and you can't adjust your panel inset to make the profile flush with the face frame. This usually looks better with a true bead rather than an edge profile.

"I would want the end stile to match the center ones for wainscot." I probably wouldn't build it that way but you can model it that way in Chief. Set your left and right stiles to 0 and then add extra vertical separations next to the panels. In the picture below, I have turned on cabinet module lines, removed the right stile, and added a new vertical separation on the right side. Also, I would probably add extra horizontal separations at the top and bottom for the moldings. I noticed that you offset your moldings from the top and bottom and then had to raise the cabinet off the floor by the same amount. Nothing wrong with that but I prefer to have the cabinet sit on the floor and use the cabinet height rather than have the molding extend past the box. Or, I might use a base cabinet and put the moldings on the 0 depth toe kick and no overhang counter.

It is possible that you are doing something wrong or just different from what other people are doing. A couple of things that may be worth noting are that if you delete either a wall or cabinet that has an electrical object connected to it, the program will automatically remove the electrical object. If you delete an electrical object that has a wiring connection, the program will automatically remove the connection. There may be other things that can cause electrical objects or connections to get removed automatically but these are probably far less common. It is also possible that either a wall or cabinet mounted electrical is getting moved so that it is located on top of another one making it difficult to see that you have more than one object. Wall and cabinet mounted electrical objects also have an annoying habit of jumping to the nearest wall when they become unattached and they might be quite a distance away from the original location. I could not find any duplicate objects on top of each other in your plan posted above but it is still something to look out for. Although it is unlikely that a program bug is causing either the electrical objects or their connections to get removed, it is possible. In order to determine that this is being caused by a bug, we will need steps to reproduce the problem. This will mean that you need to pay very close attention to what you are doing before you find something missing and then see if you can duplicate what caused it. One thing that might help you is to create a special layer set that just has all of the electrical displayed. You can then quickly switch to this layer set and use Ctrl-A to select all of the objects. If you look in the status bar, you will see a count showing you how many objects are selected. This can help you to quickly tell if something is missing. If you are able to determine that a program bug is causing this problem, please report this directly to our technical support team.

Just to clarify... The column resizing and ability to have all images use the same scale are both available in X11. The ability to use the plan scale for some images is a new feature in X12. You might want to play around with these settings to see what it does to your schedule images. The results you see will depend on what types of objects you have in the schedule and what kinds of images you are using (2D vs 3D). In some cases, you may want to have all of the images fill up the box. In other cases, you may want all of the previews to use the same scaling so that smaller objects actually look smaller compared to bigger objects. In other cases, you may want the images to be the same scale that they are in the plan. If you find any problems with how the program works or with the documentation, then please feel free to submit a bug report. If you find that these options don't cover a case that you want, then please feel free to submit a feature request.

Have you tried the Help button?

The 3D Elevation image is generated by the program using the same code we use to generate normal elevation views. You can control the size by adjusting the column width. You may also want to rename the column if you are trying to make them smaller. You can also affect the size of the images by changing the scale options in the schedule dialog.

Actually, I think we should reset the system layer names automatically when you open a legacy plan. Expecting people to remember to do this just seems like extra work regardless of where the button is. Maybe we would need a preference though? There is always someone that doesn't like automatic behavior...

Sorry Michael, but I don't agree. The new "Delete Unused Layers" tool would actually be extremely dangerous in the ALDO. Let's suppose that you were to select a cad line and see exactly one layer in the ALDO and then you were to accidentally click on this tool. All of your currently unused layers would be deleted from the plan with no visual feedback that this happened. It might even take awhile to figure out that they were missing and you might not even realize why. The amount of bad words that we would hear would be far worse than not being able to find these tools. Now I'm sure that this would never happen to you because you would never hit a wrong button, but since it happened to at least two people during our internal testing, we figured out that this would be very bad for everyone else. Having it only in the dialog box makes this new tool much safer. You will have better feedback when you delete layers and you also have the ability to cancel out of the dialog if you clicked it by mistake. The decisions we make about the user interface are not random. We actually think about these kinds of things and try to design the program to be as easy to use as we can but also try to make it hard to mess things up.

Wall coverings were originally designed to be used for cosmetic things like wallpaper borders or to have a different material above/below a chair rail molding. If you want to change the whole wall, from top to bottom, it's usually better to change either the wall or room material. If you want a wall to be structurally different, it is usually better to use a new wall type (or a pony wall depending on the situation). In other words, painting a brick material on a siding wall does not actually make it a brick wall even though the surface may look like brick. As far as being able to select a room or a wall, it should not matter how your preference is set. The preference should only control what is selected first and using the tab key should select the other one. Personally, I prefer to have the preference set to select the wall and if I need to select a room, I can always just click on the floor or ceiling and I don't have to use the tab key very often. If you specify a wall covering for a whole room going from floor to ceiling, I could see why the program might get confused and not let you select the wall. Feel free to report this to our technical support department.

I think you mean that it is now called "Edit Active View" and the reason the name was changed is because the same tool works for most views now. For example, you can use the Edit Active View tool for plan views, camera views, cad details, etc. Depending on which view you are in, it will bring up a different dialog.

"1. In 2D---How would you ACCURATELY draw a custom molding profile from scratch with a lot of shapes (similar to the CA-75 profile that comes in the Cheif Library) that could be dimensioned as a detail and given to the millwork shop?" I would probably use a combination of the input line and input arc tool but that's just because I am very picky and would want it drawn exactly the way I want it built. I obviously didn't draw CA-75 because if you look at it more closely you will see that it is not very accurate at all (some of the horizontal lines are not even horizontal). You can use the Place Molding Profile tool to put the profile into a cad detail to inspect it or modify it. "2. In 3D---I have fluted decorative column that sits on a trimmed out half wall that I need to create in 3D? (See attached photo) I can measure the physical column, but struggle to accurately model it in Chief." That column should be pretty easy since it's not tapered. I would just draw the cross section using the input line and input arc tool (although I would try to be smart about using transform/replicate and copy/reflect to minimize the actual input) and then convert it into a polyline solid to extrude it vertically. The top and bottom trim could just be molding polylines. You could then block them together to create an architectural block or convert it into a symbol both of which could be saved to the library for reuse. If you needed something more complex, like a tapered column or you wanted your flutes to have rounded ends instead of square ones, you would then need to start using the solid modeling tools like Mark was talking about.

"Why can't I type the dimension of the length of a lines WHILE I'm drawing a polyline shape?" You can. Just hit the tab key after you start drawing the line and type in the dimension. Or, try using the "Input Line" tool or the "Input Arc" tool to specify a line or arc. Or, just draw a line and then open up the specification dialog and type in the info you want. Or, draw the general shape you want and then use the temp or manual dimensions to make it accurate. Or, if you want to move an object, use the Transform/Replicate dialog. There are lots and lots of different ways to do things in Chief. "I am using the wrong program if I'm expecting this accuracy?" Chief is very capable of quickly creating extremely accurate details and models. Modelling some things is going to be much easier than others though. If I wanted to create an accurate model of a house, I would choose Chief over any other program available but if I needed to create an accurate model of a toilet, I would probably choose something else.

From your description it sounds like you are sending views to layout that are linked to a Saved Plan View. If you change anything associated with the Saved Plan View, such as the layer set or current floor, then this will affect your layout view. Here are some ways to solve your problems: - You can stop using saved plan views by switching your Saved Plan View Control that appears in the default toolbar to "None". You can also do this in your default template so that new plans won't start in a saved plan view. - You can unlink a layout box from a saved plan view by opening the Layout Box Specification dialog and setting the Linked Saved Plan View combo box to "None". In X11, there is also a new edit toolbar button that will allow you to link or unlink a layout box from a saved plan view. - You can learn how to use Saved Plan Views. If you use a different saved plan view for each layout view, you won't have to worry about accidentally changing them. More information about Saved Plan Views can be found in the reference manual or in this video: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/2421/saved-plan-views.html?playlist=100

Unless I have misunderstood, Brian and Richard are talking about copying a "Cad Detail". Michael and others are talking about copying a "Layout Box". These are not doing the same thing.

The Active Layer Display Options dialog is designed to give you quick access to your layer information while you are drawing. As a result, we only put tools on it that would be the most common and used the most often. The ability to reset your system layer names doesn't really fit into this category since it would typically be used only once when bringing a legacy plan forward. The good news is that the Reset Names tool, along with some other less commonly used tools, will appear in the normal Layer Display Options dialog. There are lots of ways to get to this dialog, and not just through the Defaults Sets dialog. You can even setup a hotkey or customize your toolbars (if it's not already there) to open it more easily.