Dermot

I spent some time looking into the attached plan.  It has different layer names in different layer sets.

The easiest way for you to tell this is to open the layer display options dialog, select any layer (such as "Cad 10"), and then look at every other layer set.  You can do this using the arrow key while the Layer Set drop down box has the focus.  As you change layer sets, you will see that the layer name is either "Cad 10" or "Site  Notes".  It's not a problem in just one or two layer sets either because it looks like about half use one name and half use another.  To make things even more confusing, there is another layer called "Site Notes 3" that is also called "Site Notes" in some layer sets. 

The bottom line is that the layer names are seriously messed up.  I have no idea how it got in this state but I would not try and straighten these names out.  I would abandon this plan and maybe use Edit Area to copy anything important to a brand new plan.  I would also recommend that you check your template plans for messed up layer names.

And again, if you need more help, I would recommend that you contact technical support.

If you are looking for a viewer that will work on a desktop, we already have one that you can get here:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/resources/viewerrequest.php

I have not looked at your plan but I suspect that you have different layer names in different layer sets.

This is technically a "feature" of the program.  I don't think it is a very good feature though and it allows people to get into a state where the program is very confusing.  At least one power user has reported this as a bug several times even after we have explained what is going on here.

The only way that I know of to get into this situation is to go into your Preferences under Layers and turn off "Modify Name in All Layer Sets".  (Note that this is not the "Modify All Layers" checkbox in the Layer Display Options dialog).  Please go into your preferences and make sure this option is checked and never uncheck it. 

It is possible that there is some other way of getting your layer names messed up.  I have no way of knowing for sure but every user that has ever reported this problem has sworn that their preference was never changed.  There may be a bug somewhere that we haven't been able to find.  If anyone can figure out a way to get into this state without modifying the preference, then please report this to technical support so we can investigate further.

The good news about this is that we are planning on removing this "feature" in X9.

As for dealing with your messed up layers in your plan, I recommend first making sure your preference is set correct and then deleting any layer sets that have the messed up names.  If most of your layer sets are messed up, then I would just copy your plan to a new file using Edit Area and toss the one with the messed up layer sets.  You should not import any layer sets or annotation sets from this plan into any other plans.  You should not reuse this plan using the "save as method" because this will just bring any layer problems forward.  If you have somehow gotten any of your template plans in this state, I would recommend deleting them and starting with clean ones.

If all else fails, then please contact technical support for additional help during our regular business hours.

If your plan is showing the reference floor when you send a plan view to layout, then the layout will show the reference floor.

If you want to modify the reference floor display on an existing layout box, just open the specification dialog and go to the Plan View panel.  There you will be able to turn reference display on/off or change the other settings.

There are probably going to be lots of performance problems with this kind of plan. The living area calculations are just the most obvious one that affects how long it takes to draw the plan view. You will likely find other problems the more you work on it.

This is not what I would consider a complicated plan but it is certainly not a typical plan either. This plan has over 1100 separate walls and 1100 separate rooms on a single floor. The bottom line is that Chief was not setup to handle this situation in the most efficient way. We have lots of internal algorithms that are based on the number of walls and rooms so the higher these numbers get the bigger slow downs you will see.

Here are my comments and suggestions:

1. First, and I really can't emphasize this enough, YOU SHOULD ALWAYS REPORT PROBLEMS LIKE THIS TO TECHNICAL SUPPORT. We can't make Chief handle these situations better if people don't report them to us. I would expect someone who is a long time alpha/beta tester to already know this.

2. I don't recommend trying to work with all 7 buildings in a single plan file. You will be able to work far more efficiently if you create several plan files with only one unique building in them. You can then create a master plan file for your site where you import the buildings as symbols. This is usually the best solution if you are ever trying to work with multiple buildings that results in a very large model (like when doing a sub-division). If you do this, you can proably ignore all of the rest of my suggestions that follow.

3. Turning off living area in your Plan Defaults will significantly speed up plan view drawing. Turning off the concrete fill pattern for your walls will speed it up some more.

4. Turning off include in living area for every room can be done very easily with the Match Properties tool. I doubt that this will result in any improvements if you have already turned off living area in plan defaults.

5. Turning off all automatic rebuilds will probably allow you to work more efficiently. Things like Rebuild Walls/Floors/Ceilings are normally done every time you change a wall or room setting and given the number of walls and rooms this is probably going to be an issue. Turning off other auto rebuilds for things like roofs and framing could also have a huge impact when working on large plans.

6. I would avoid trying to do lots of work while in a camera view or with any camera views actually open. Rebuilding the 3D data might also be a slow process.

7. Zooming in on a particular part of the model won't help much. If you make a change to a room or wall, it doesn't matter if most of your other walls and rooms are not on the screen. The program still has to update everything to keep the model correct.

8. You might be able to work more efficiently if you make all of your interior walls "no room definition". This will have various side effects but they might not interfere with what you want.

Edit area can do lots of cool things but it is by no means a perfect tool.  It can move or stretch walls and closed polylines but there are lots of other things that it will just ignore or not handle in an ideal way.  Since objects in Chief are "smart" parametric objects, they are not all treated the same.  While it would make sense to stretch most polyline based objects it would rarely make sense to stretch an electrical object.  Because each object has it's own special rules, edit area has to know what these are in order to handle them correctly.

The bottom line is that if the tool doesn't work the way you think it should, then you should always send a report to us explaining how you want it to work.

Edit Area.

We just released an update that should correct this issue.  For more info see this announcement:

https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/9326-chief-18212-update-is-available/

Although we don't sponsor any organized events for spouses, family, or friends, there are lots of things to do in and around the area.  August is usually our warmest and driest month so outdoor activities are very popular.  This link to our web page has a few suggestions along with a link to the official visitor web site:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/company/location.html

"Eureka! It works now."

I'm glad that worked. 

Regarding problems with downloading the core libraries, you might want to take a look at this help article which explains how to manually download and install them:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-02899/manually-installing-core-catalogs-for-chief-architect-premier.html

And again, if you continue to have problems, I would encourage you to contact tech support tomorrow.

Verify that your shortcut is correct as per Graeme's suggestion above.

It is possible that one of your data files that does not get uninstalled is corrupted (things like template files, toolbars, custom libraries, etc.).  Find your Chief Architect X8 Data folder under your My Documents folder.  Rename this folder to something else.  When you launch X8, it will automatically copy the default templates, toolbars, and other files from the install folder.

If that doesn't work, then I would try a virus scan.  Not likely, but always a possibility.

Also, if you have not rebooted since you first started having problems, do this now.  When all else fails, always reboot.

If none of this solves your problem, then I can only suggest that you call tech support on Monday morning.  They are much better at diagnosing these kinds of things then I am.

Chief files can not be opened in previous versions.

It's still not clear to me whether or not the problem you are having is with a particular plan or the problem is trying to run X8.  Obviously you were able to run X8 previously otherwise you could not have saved the plan in X8.  If you are trying to launch X8 by opening the problem plan, then this could still indicate that the problem is the plan and not the program.

Can you launch X8 without opening any plan or layout files?

If not, how are you trying to launch X8?

After experiencing the DBX several times, and hitting the ABORT button, X8 will not start. Only the attached BDX comes up

This is not clear to me.

Do you get the assertion message when you try to launch X8 without opening a new or existing plan?

If so, then you either have a bad installation or system related problem.  In this case I would first try uninstalling and then reinstalling the program.

Do you only get the assertion when you are trying to open a particular plan or layout file?

Then the most likely problem is that the plan or layout file is corrupt in some way.  It is also possible that you have found a bug in the program.  In either case, you should report this problem to technical support so that we can look into it further.  If this is a bug, it may already be fixed in the soon to be available update but if not we would want to try and get a fix into the next available update.  If the problem is a corrupted file, then we would still like to see if we can improve the program so that this file could be opened without crashing the program.

Regardless of whether the file is corrupt or there is a bug in the program, you probably won't be able to open it in your version of X8.  You may want to look for a backup version of the file that does not have this problem. 

For additional help, you may wish to contact technical support on Monday during normal business hours.

I really would love to have control of the newels in plan or section and be able to pull dimensions to them for precise placement.  Please don't tell me we can do that already!!

 

Unfortunately, no and I agree that this would be a nice addition.   You do have some control over newel placement by just adding breaks to your railing walls.  Not precise but it helps.

If I inset (offset) the newels, the railings should follow (or I should be able to have the ability in the dbx to offset them similarily) and stay centered on the newels IMO.  Is there an easy way to do that I have missed?

 

If you want to keep the railings centered on the newel, then do not offset the newel.  The best way to control the newel/rail position is through the wall width.  Not ideal but it should work in most cases.

Curt,

If you are using X8, you are probably doing a lot more work then you need to.

1.  To align your 8" newel post with the outside of the deck, you just need to use an 8" thick wall.  There is no need for any special wall layers.

2.  You will need to turn off "automatic width" for your rail widths unless you want an 8" wide rail.

3.  Unless you really need to see the balusters in plan view, all you need to do is turn on display of rails and newels in the railing dialog and you won't have to draw any cad lines.

See simple deck plan that I attached.

simple deck.plan

If you switch your "live views" to "plot line" views, the program should work very much like it did in X7 and prior. 

If you are still having problems, then you probably need to post something more specific or contact tech support.

You can only edit the layout lines if the view is a "Plot Lines" view.  You can't edit the layout lines If the view is a "Live View".

You can change your live view to plot lines (or vice versa) in the Layout Box Specification dialog. 

Personally, I would recommend that you keep the view live and make all your changes in the actual view.  If all you want to do is hide some cabinet shelves, you could create a separate cabinet or something that hides the shelves and control the display with your layers.  If you convert the view to plot lines you will have to repeat all of your line edits every time you make any other changes to the model.

FYI, there are actually two ways to solve the problem of faceted (or segmented) arcs in Chief.

The first method, which I think is the preferred method, is to adjust the facet angle.  When you select a polyline based object (like a counter top, slab, or polyline solid) that has an arc, you will usually get the "Selected Arc" panel when you click directly on the curved edge.  When available, you will also see controls for the "Facet Angle" and "Automatic Facet Angle".  If you have an arc that appears too segmented and you would like to smooth it out, just uncheck automatic and specify a smaller facet angle.  The facet angle controls are not available for all objects but when they are available they will allow you to create a smooth curve without losing the actual arc.  The facet angle controls are also available for things like walls, railings, and roofs.

The second method, is to convert the curved arc into a bunch of smaller straight line segments.  If you select the arc segment of the polyline, you should find an edit button called "Convert Curve to Polyline".  This will allow you to smooth out the curves by specifying the number of line segments you want it broken up into.  100 segments seems a bit much and you should be able to use a smaller number of segments and still get a smooth curve.

Unfortunately, I don't think either of these two tools are available for 3D molding polylines (although they probably should be) so you will have to use Michael's method of first converting it to a simple polyline, convert the curve into straight segments, and then convert back to a 3D molding polyline.

Where do we report bugs we find?

 

For future reference, go here:

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/

When we refer to Home Designer 2016, we mean all Home Designer products (Pro, Architectural, Suite, Interiors, and Essentials).

When we refer to Chief Architect X7, we mean all professional products (Premier and Interiors).

I bet Joe's right.  Look at your wall layers and in particular if your outside layer is marked as "framing".

It's a standard drafting convention that all of your vertical and horizontal labels will always face the same direction.  So it's going to be normal for cabinet labels to face the wall sometimes.

There are a couple of easy things you can do if you want to change this though.

- If you would prefer to have all of your cabinet labels horizontal instead, you can set the label angle to "absolute" and 0 degrees in the cabinet dialog.

- If you really want some of your vertical labels to be flipped around, set them to be 180.01 degrees which will prevent the program from flipping them back automatically.  Unfortunately, this won't work on the horizontal labels but I'm not sure that you would really want those upside down. 

There may be other suggestions but these are what I came up with that are easy.

Assuming that you upgraded them, then you can't sell any of them.  Once you upgrade a version, you can't sell any of the older versions.  Please see your EULA for more info.  If you still have any questions, please contact our Customer Service department.

You might want to turn on "Automatically Rebuild Foundation" instead.  This will keep your foundation up to date as you make changes to your floor plan without losing any thing else on your foundation plan. 

The recently posted update only corrects a couple of important issues that were in 18.1 that were not in 18.0.