Dermot

"(because you can only select in a rectangle fashion)" Actually, you can use Edit Area with almost any shaped area. Just draw a normal polyline in your plan and shape it however you like. If you use the Edit Area tool while the polyline is selected, then the program will use your polyline instead of letting you draw a rectangle.

"Is there a way to permanently change the layer name that the curtains are assigned to? So when I insert curtains into the plans they show up on a layer named "curtains" and not on "fixture, Interior" which is the same layer name that is assigned to the kitchen appliances." Not in X7. In X7, we only store limited information about the fixture and furniture objects in the library database. This means that some of the changes you can make to it, such as which layer it is on, won't be retained when you save it in the library and then use it in a new plan. In X8, we will store all of the information in the library.

Your plan has some random room divider walls and some other bad wall connections. If you remove these random room divider walls and clean up your wall connections, it will probably behave much better. Also, I noticed that you turned off "Connect Island Rooms" in your general wall defaults. I don't recommend doing this until you completely understand how to always keep your walls properly connected. Turning this on also fixes the problem with bad rooms. https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/7492-cant-get-rid-of-automatically-created-room-dividers/

Have you tried the "Reset Side Windows" button in your preferences dialog? If this does not work, then I would recommend that you contact technical support.

You can't control the height of the distributed line or polyline but you can control the height of the objects. In the distributed path/region specification dialog, you should find an "Edit" button to the right of the "Select" button. This will allow you to modify the object being distributed. Assuming your rocks are really just exterior fixtures, you should be able to raise or lower all of them by setting the "Floor to Bottom" height. Also, you may want to make sure they are set to "Auto Adjust Height" so that they will follow the terrain height. If all else fails, you can always explode the distributed path so that you can modify the rocks independently.

You should not turn off the option to automatically connect island rooms. Your plan has "island" rooms. These are interior rooms that are not connected to any exterior walls. If they are not connected, you will very likely have problems with things like room definitions, floors and ceilings, moldings, and more. If you don't like where the program put the automatic room dividers, then draw your own and then you can delete the ones the program made. If you don't want to see the room dividers, then just turn off the layer.

My best guess is that you have the camera layer turned off in your Layer Display Options. Active cameras will display even when the layer is turned off. Saved cameras will only display when the layer is on. I bet if you turn the layer on, you will find a whole bunch of saved cameras in your plan view. If this is not the problem, then you should probably contact technical support.

You can change the text style used by the cameras through your layers. By default, your cameras will be on the layer called "Cameras" using the "Default Text Style". Change your camera layer to use a different text style and the camera callouts will update accordingly.

You can turn off "Always Display Active Cameras" in your Camera Defaults.

The shelf is not protruding past the front of the cabinet box. It just looks that way because of z-fighting. Take a look at my picture below. This is cross section of a default frameless wall cabinet using the default door style. Please note how there is a small gap between the door and the cabinet shelf. Note also how the door style shows a very thin panel. You would never see a cabinet door with a panel this thin in the real world. You can solve the z-fighting problem by choosing a door style without this thin panel or by modifying your shelves. Choose the method that works best for you.

I really doubt that the shelves are actually protruding through the doors. A cross section view would confirm this but of course we are still just guessing. Either a frameless cabinet or a face frame cabinet with inset doors are more likely to show the problem. A face frame cabinet with a traditional overlap door is less likely to show the problem. These are due to the way that the cabinets are constructed. In any case, the problem is most likely a side effect of the door panel being too thin. Changing the shelf depth, removing the shelves entirely, or changing the door style will probably solve the problem. In most cases, changing door styles is the easiest solution since you can just change it in your cabinet defaults. The above solutions only apply to cabinet shelves. There are a wide variety of other z-fighting problems with other possible solutions including updating video card drivers, changing your camera near clipping distance, and correcting modeling problems such as overlapping objects or very thin layers in walls or roofs. This is why posting a plan along with a screen capture of the problem will help others give you more relevant suggestions. When all else fails, contact technical support.

Since there are no plans or pictures attached to your post, I can only make guesses about what your problem is. My best guess is that what you are seeing is a z-fighting problem. If you do a search here you will find lots of info on z-fighting issues. Since there can be a wide variety of causes, there are also a wide variety of solutions. The good news is that if you are using the Vector View rendering technique, you should not see any of these problems when you send a view to layout (as long as you don't send it as an "image"). Any of the other rendering techniques will always be images so they would show the problem on layouts. The main reason why this problem shows up frequently with cabinet shelves is because the default door symbol has a very thin panel. It's only about 1/16" thick which is not very realistic. Making your shelves shorter or removing them completely will solve your problem. Personally, I think it is much easier to just choose a different door style in your default cabinets. The raised panel door that is in the core libraries usually works much better then the recessed panel that is the default. You probably only need to do this for your default base, wall, and full height cabinet and as long as all of your cabinets in your plan are still set to "use default" then your problems should go away.

If you are really curious about what is in X8, you might want to apply to be on the beta team. See this thread for more info: https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/7011-x8-beta-testing-team/

You can turn off ceiling break lines in your layer display options. But, I would encourage you to fix your ceilings instead.

It's the ceiling break line.

In our library, you will find some window well and pool symbols that create holes in the terrain.

I believe counter top holes and terrain holes are the only special objects we currently allow to be part of a symbol's cad block. Eventually, we would like to extend this functionality to include all other types of holes.

Some of the information above is incorrect. You don't need to change your symbol placement to "None". You don't need to create any magic surfaces as part of your symbol. You don't need any magic materials. All you need is to add a custom hole to the symbol's cad block. By default, a tub or sink symbol will make a rectangular hole. The program is just not smart enough to figure out that you want a shaped hole and generate this for you automatically. If you want a shaped hole, then you need to create your own custom hole and make it part of the cad block used for the tub or sink. The process for doing this is actually pretty simple: - Use the Cad Block Management dialog to insert your symbol's cad block into a plan and then explode it. - Draw your custom hole as a polyline. You can use an ellipse and then use the Convert Curve to Polyline tool to make it a polyline. - Use the Convert Polyline tool to change the polyline into a custom counter top. - Open the custom counter top and make it a hole. - Block your custom counter top hole with the other cad that was in your original cad block. - Name your cad block something that will make sense. - Use the Open Symbol dialog to assign your new cad block containing your custom counter top hole to your tub symbol.

"Hope you've been lightening Chief." Actually, since we have added so many new features, it is much heavier now.

Try this: http://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00654/restoring-the-size-position-of-the-side-windows.html

No one will be able to find it in your attached plan file. Toolbars are not stored in plans. Try this link for more help: http://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00467/troubleshooting-missing-toolbars.html If all else fails, contact tech support.

From your image, it does look like you have the room selected but something does not look right to me. Normally, we draw a 3D box showing the outline of the selected room and your picture does not look like this. I would bet that you are seeing other issues with objects selected in camera views? My best guess is that this is a vide card issue. You may want to try updating your video card driver to see if that solves any problems. Here is a tech support article about video card problems: http://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00106/troubleshooting-3d-camera-view-display-problems.html If all else fails, you should call technical support tomorrow.

FYI, If you turn on your reference display, you should be able to use snaps to align walls with those on another floor.

Yes, it's an X8 vs. X7 thing. Maybe we need to remind some of our beta testers what an NDA is? The shelf tool uses the shelf defaults. A shelf symbol placed from the library does not. This was not clear in your original question. In X7, we only store striped down symbol objects in the library. This means that you will lose some of the attributes that you can set while it is in a plan. Layer is an example, but label info is another. In X8, library objects will keep all of their attributes.

Chief Architect only has one Shelf Default. You can find it in the Cabinets section of the Default Settings dialog. Assuming that you are creating your closet shelves using the Shelf tool, the same one that is found under the Cabinets tool in the Build menu, then this is the correct default to modify. If you are creating closet shelves using some other tool, then you would need to give me more details about what you are doing. If all you are trying to change is the layer, you can also use the Layer Eyedropper and Layer Painter tool.