Steve_Nyhof

Seems I have touched some nerves! I agree with you guys and have adapted very well to learning Chiefs ways of doing things. In fact I have been very impressed with many aspects of how the relationships all work. This forum is called "Tips & Techniques" - so I thought I would offer a tip in how to place walls accurately without placing a wall anywhere and then having to move it into its place - via the dimensions - per user manual. Yet, both processes work and are offered within Chief. Chief is the first system I used where the tutorial tells the user to build your walls by just placing them on the screen with little attention to being accurate. Then (second process) select them one by one and change the dimensions - work your way around the plan - this works - go for it. Just because they teach this process does not mean there isn”t another way that is equally fitting. I have taken advantage of the Tab key and enter my exact distances I want. I know the walls are all placed accurately on the screen to start with. Is there harm in this if it does not fit the "way" things are taught? I'm really not someone who likes to resist, I just do not like to conform if there is another way that I find works better for me - and may work better for others... Thus a tip! I resisted Chief at first because it didn't fit my paradigm of how CAD should operate. But the more I get into Chief the more impressed I am with how things work and my paradigm has shifted a great deal! I am learning just how limited ADT really is and that Chiefs relationships are amazing! Nevertheless, That does not mean my almost 40 years working with CAD and with their programming languages, from 2D DOS AutoACAD, to ADT, that I have not learned and appreciated the minds behind these software's. Honestly, I feel attacked by you fellows who seem to want me to be open minded to new ways of understanding software by forcing me to conform to a strict "way" to operate within Chief. Thank you for your understanding.

Yes as I have noted in other ways to do this. I'm just saying that if you want a new wall copied from an existing known wall location and type, then your new copied wall can be located correctly in one operation vs two or more. I love how it works as it is very close to ADT - so maybe that is me, but my understanding is that many new Chief users are coming from ADT.

There are a number of options to copy and paste an existing wall to a new location. Some require a popup where you enter info, or just Ctrl+V and click into the plan and drag to some known place, and then drag, click Tab and add the distance. Then I found a nice command called Copy/Paste which makes a copy of the wall and waits for you to pick its location. To make an accurate "offset" from the wall you are copying, click the Move grip on the highlighted wall and drag in the direction you want and click the Tab key. Then enter the Distance you want and hit Enter or the OK button. In ADT you would make a copy, pick its start point with the grip and drag in the direction you wanted and add the dimension. This makes it very easy and fast to lay out accurate wall locations. I set up a Hotkey with Alt+C for this command Select the wall Enter Alt+C Select the move grip and drag in the direction where you want the new wall to be added Hit the Tab key Enter the Distance and Enter key or OK

Thank you - didn't know it was something that was missing I will write something up - Thank you!

Thank you gentlemen! It is a 2868 99% of the time, so a CAD block will work perfectly.

Thank you Ryan! I agree totally about dragging. Makes me nervous of what I will run into next and forget I did this days before. But yes, I am not getting to my other work and have been up long hours. The more I set up my defaults and template (and mess with a test plan) the more excited I am about Chief! I was just messing with the dimensions, and I dimension from the out in - meaning, my first line is over all, my next line in are the main jogs, the next line are to interior walls and my last line is to openings. Chief does not always do over all on jogs that are too far away (unless you increase the "reach") and the second line in goes to interior walls as well as main wall jogs, so the poured wall guys and framers would need to add up those dimensions to learn the main widths. I have learned how to use auto dimensions and then add my own to pull off what I want, but it can be done and a small price to pay to having a program auto generate elevations, etc. I think in the end I will not spend more time drawing with Chief.

I still need to figure out daylight and walkout basement walls, but I feel I have come a long way already. I added an exterior wall in the garage and it auto cut out the foundation wall - wonderful! However, it would be nice in plan view if it looked like my brick ledge step on the left with the hatch pattern. Maybe it's a layer thing - I just thought of that...

That would make things easier for sure. And if the client wanted a straight wall, they could always fir it out. I grew up building homes, and I had always seen it with the step in the wall.

Worked perfectly! Thank you!!

I felt I was making things complicated - but learning a lot! I will try that. Thank you

I dragged the top down and it fixed it - I like that it worked, but I'm setting things up - I don't like that I don't know how. You can see the Elevation of Lower Wall Top and Height Off Floor are different. When I was setting up the defaults, this number was the same for both.

It is looking better, but I have tried different options and entered different heights and nothing changes to the flush pony wall. I am setting up pony walls in Foundation wall types. I am doing some reading in help for pony walls and maybe I should be using a pony wall type??? Anyway, showing my progress. Eric, maybe you can show me your dialog box - I may be missing a setting - I'm sure I am missing some understanding still wrapping my head around this. Thank you

AH! Very smart! Makes perfect sense!!

That's beautiful!! I'm still learning, so I do not fully understand, "break matching the left wall" - sorry

The drawings I uploaded show why its there. It costs less for the foundation guys when forming their walls, and often doubles as a ledge to support conc. pads. A 4" wall is not allowed, but a 6" wall would be. That would create a 2.5" jog in the garage - not a big deal - It is just how it is done around here.

It's kind of working! I'm going to keep messing with it this way because then the ledge is auto generated and looks good in the sections also. I may still use a pony wall and some hidden voodoo

I just had a thought - I wonder if I could make a wall type that shows the siding to match the rest of the walls, but have a brick layer that is invisible??? I may look into that.

I found a video on brick ledges using pony walls. I do see how if the main floor wall above is a brick wall type that it will auto create the ledge in the foundation wall - very nice! However, we seldom use brick any more, but I use "brick" ledges all the time for porches, moving the concrete out 4" to save room for the stairs, etc. But this example (see images) is used all the time here in West Michigan when a garage wall returns back into the main house. I have refined and made a number of new walls as my defaults and feeling pretty good about Chief (been messing with it for about a week getting my defaults in place, my main plan and layout files all set up), but got stuck on this ledge. As you can see the concrete forms (real life) are set up to go straight across the T of the wall, and then they use a panel to create the ledge - which is later covered up by the grade. But I have drawn my foundations this way for 30+ years and that is how foundation are poured here in West Michigan. (I'm going on a bit to avoid those big hearted folks that may suggest I change how real life works because software can't do what we want.) You can see I almost have it. I am just wondering if there is some setting that turns off the relationship that is causing it to pull back from the corner when I release my mouse. I want to thank all of you who have been so willing to help offer advise and direction. This forum limits the number of replies and comments I can post - I guess until I become a bigger dog. So if I do not respond, it is because I have maxed out my replies and will respond the next day. ~Thank you, Steve

Hi Joseph, I am trying to find this very thing and my search will continue. However, how I can purchase this macro from you? in ADT I have a main floor outline a second floor outline if exist a third floor outline if exist and then I total those on the elevation page I do not count sq.ft. the garage I find the sq ft of the lower, but that stands on it own and is not part of the total.

Thank you Mark, this is very helpful!

I went back for now to wipe-out

The file name is not updating however. Maybe it does not like nested macros ???

I just covered is up with a gray box - worked

I did it. Made a .plan and put it with my layout file to keep them together. Sent to my default layout page and cropped it. I've been looking around to find how to remove the 1st Floor note - seems to come along ???

Ah! Ok, and I totally understand the cropping aspect. Going to give that a go