Steve_Nyhof

I know I posted this earlier, but it is worth the read as I answer or expound on a number of questions that are coming up. In fact I think I mention to stay on X16 and use X17 in Project Management mode until you understand the details before committing time on important projects. I use it every day now and love it. I am a single user so I cannot speak to a team. 

Good to know, thank you!

On 7/10/2025 at 5:17 PM, raltd9245 said:

Again the programers have to much time on their hands and not enough useful work to do!!!!!

I know you have it in you to say something nice to the programmers. Just do it! Do it for fun if not just to be kind. I'm sure you will get many people to give you upvotes and offset those nasty red downvotes. Plus, I bet that saying something nice will make a number of peoples day.  Come on now... Put a nice big smile on your face, and say something nice! 

On 6/11/2025 at 4:16 PM, DG1949 said:

Very disappointed that my 4 year old iMac 27" (About $2800.00) is now obsolete thanks to the M1 requirement.

You should change the title of this thread - MAC / PC X17 Disappointment

Thank you

Download this rendering file and see what my settings are 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I2ZwzEyGUJHPKaD5RQ6J2S5B-f7iW8Mt/view?usp=sharing

12 hours ago, HardWorkingBee said:

I'm getting those light stripes and the dark horizontal band on the background image.

I am getting these light stripes also. Not as bad as you are. I have tried a number of things, including adding a large solid behind the image and that also does not work for me. I do believe the lighting for the background plays a role so you might mess with that.

But, one thing that is about this thread, is that it has progressed over time, and ended with me using HDRi backgrounds when introduced with X16. I did not hear anything about the image background issues from anyone else, so thought it was just me. I might have even eluded to this issue in this thread. I don't remember.

Try moving your sun around a little also and see what you get.

Now that I spend most of my time in X17 Project Manager (PM), I wanted to say that I really think this is an improvement over standard file management - for me. I will add that I am in the middle of a few condo projects with X16 that I will finish out with X16. I do believe the X17 PM will be a great asset for condo projects... hmmm, maybe I will need to reevaluate putting the condo plans into an X17 project.

I know there are those who have a team, and so there may be reasons not to embrace it, but just for working in the environment as a single user, I find it very useful and productive. Even when I take a phone call while working and need to pull up a plan, I am already there and just pull it up. If it is an older plan that is not in the system then I still need to search and find it in Explorer, but opening it into X17 PM is easy enough.

So after working with it now for some months, I am finding that I am really enjoying the PM as a user friendly system, and a benefit to my work flow. Yes, it is different, but like anything that is new, after some time of working with it, you know whether or not it is a good or bad thing. I believe it is a very good thing.

One thing that just entered my head... As an experienced user, or one that may claim being a professional at Chief, we often talk about how Chief should offer more complex options and features for advanced users, well I know I have. And yet when it shows up in a form that is different than expected, we fight against it. Like they say, "if it were easy, everyone would be doing it." Take the time to learn and use the PM in a way that works for you, and then decide if it is of value to your operation or not. 

8 minutes ago, 3DDesigner said:

PS - I may take a beating for mentioning another drafting program (so sorry) but SoftPlan has this topic covered very well and I "think?" it fills all the checks of what we are trying to accomplish here. ALL plans, drawings, saved pictures and pdfs, are all synced to the cloud and you can open your work on any machine and it automatically syncs. And you can collaborate with anyone that has SoftPlan with no effort. Just put in their key number. No broken links here either. One downside - program settings you have to manually backup and restore as you deem necessary.

I think this is a strong indicator as to why Chief is heading down this road. They just did not make it in time for this release. I do expect to see their cloud service back in place by X18

Thank you, Robert! That makes sense. I have deleted the walls from the attic on occasion, but sometimes it is not at clean as this plan. Seems to me we should have an option to turn off wall framing for attic walls if we want. Suggestion 20,001

Edit: If you have attic walls generated from a main floor roof and also from a second floor roof, that is when you cannot delete the walls from the attic level, and where turning off framing for attic walls would be nice.

This has driven me crazy for years. I set my top plate to 5'-10 5/8", and yet I have this extended wall that when walls are added, it puts on a double, double top plate...

Plan

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z6qTE_o1odZ4mgvV1zPKWrDvzXyg7L25/view?usp=sharing

Thoughts?

Thank you

Steve

10 hours ago, tundra_dweller said:

I have two side buttons on my programmable mouse set for moving up or down floors.

Thank you for sharing your setup. I do like this idea!

Hello,

I found the Angle/Grid settings being used for more than one thing. I do not remember how I learned about this, but I use it all the time.

https://my-plan.stevenyhofdesigns.com/v/dxEceTy51pnv0bFssRrH

Thoughts on this?

On 6/26/2025 at 3:19 PM, Steve_Nyhof said:

That worked...

I wanted to give an update here. I went into a number of my kitchen cabinet blocks that are saved to my library and updated the Bounding Box Space "Front" field to "0", and saved them back to the library (before this last Chief update). I am happy to report that this change (latest Chief update) made no difference to the plan or 3D view of the dishwasher. It seems if you updated this or not prior to this latest update, Chief handled it.  Great Job foreseeing those of us that get out ahead of things too quickly!!

On 6/26/2025 at 7:37 AM, Steve_Nyhof said:

Over the past few weeks, it seems there are bots getting in here asking these types of silly questions. I think we are just being trolled.

Thank you for who ever gave me an upvote to offset my downvote! I know I can be silly at times, but I'm not mean. 

All fixed up and back in the library. Now I hope they don't change something that messes it up 

That worked...

16 minutes ago, Joe_Carrick said:

Steve, You don't even need to regen the 2D.  All you need to do is edit the y offset of the bounding box to 0.

The other option is to just delete the cabinet qnd place the dishwasher from the library.  X17 symbols work correctly when placed that way.  You will have a countertop above the dishwasher - or you can create a custom countertop over all the cabinets and the dishwasher.

I'll test it out. I have groupings of kitchen cabinets, one if of a sink and DW and some cabinets, so I will need to fix it up and save it back to the library. Thank you!

2 minutes ago, Arnold1955 said:

Not a troll...It's not a silly question to me!

Of course I can use a back clip elevation, that's not the point.  This is an automatic generated detail that is useful. Perfect for what I would use it for.  

Thanx all for trying to help. By the way, I started with version (4)

 

Arnold55

Sorry, Arnold! I deserved that down vote. So I'm all ears. What would you use that section for?

Not working for me

4 hours ago, Joe_Carrick said:

FWIW, in X17 a Dishwasher doesn't insert into a cabinet.  It is placed instead of a cabinet and the countertop generates on top of it..That way the Dishwasher is placed correctly in the plan view.

 

But any existing plans brought into X17 at this time will need to be fixed.

Ah! I see

Yes, just reported it - I ran into it about an hour ago

Over the past few weeks, it seems there are bots getting in here asking these types of silly questions. I think we are just being trolled.

I will add that if you use special fonts in Chief, to not forget to install them onto the new computer. I opened chief and FYI, a full backup will NOT copy special fonts to the new computer. Once I installed them Chief files opened without any missing links, files or materials. 

This is a great video by Rene. The operation is very similar to the way I use it...

16 minutes ago, JKEdmo said:

To all those brave pioneers / early X17 adopters, any issues (e.g. stability, etc.)?  I'm anxious to upgrade, but I thought I'd ping the group before I make the leap.

 

Jim

Keep working in X16, but install X17 into Project Managed mode so you can mess with it. Do not draw important plans in the PM until you understand how it all works...