Dermot

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.

Have you also looked through all of the bonus libraries? http://3dlibrary.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?r=site/library&reset=true

Have you tried changing it in the Shelf Defaults?

Just hold the shift key down when you select the upper stair section. This will put you into "multi-select" mode. The stair dialog will then only make changes to the selected sections and not to any of other the connected sections.

You probably don't need to import any default settings when migrating to a new computer. You probably want to transfer all of your user data, including all of your template plans, to the new computer instead. You should read this support article for more information: http://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00001/migrating-chief-architect-to-a-new-computer.html

It all depends on the height of the room molding polyline. If you create a room molding polyline at the floor level, it will ignore all of the windows but cut out for the doors. If you create one at mid-wall height, it will probably get both windows and doors. If you create one at ceiling height, it will probably miss both.

There is also a blank line style you can use.

Check your text preferences. You may have set your number of segments to 1 instead of 2 which is the normal default.

You should not turn off the preference for this warning. You should first try to fix your model to prevent any problems with disconnected walls. Disconnected walls can cause all kinds of other problems such as bad room definitions. If you believe you have found a case where the program is warning you where the walls do not need to be connected, then you should report this to technical support as a bug. This will allow us to make further improvements to the program in future updates.

You do not have all of the same style options with stair railings that you do with normal or manually drawn railings. Manual railings that have been set to follow stairs are very tricky to create and get good results with. Unless you are an advanced user I won't recommend them. I assumed that Austin's main problem was creating the stacked stairs with properly connected railings and open below rooms. The simple example I attached above demonstrates how to do this just using the automatic tools. Once you have a properly configured stair, it is fairly easy to change the style of the normal railings that form the open below rooms. To change the style of the stair railings to match, you may have turn off the stair railings and create manual ones instead but this is an advanced skill. I think it is important to get the configuration correct first and then to worry (or not as the case may be) about the style considerations.

I can't see how making a custom handrail will make your life any easier. I would recommend using the Auto Stairwell tool as a starting point instead. This tool should automatically generate a railing and an open below room that will contain your stairs. See the attached plan as a very simple example. stacked stairs.zip

I would love to figure out what the problem is. If you can't post a video, then maybe you can post a plan that demonstrates the problem along with some very clear steps as to what you are doing.