stevenyhof

So along these same lines, I have this all figured out, my heights are perfect for walkout and daylight.

However, on my elevation view, there is a line where the First floor siding is overlapping the lower wall siding. Do I have some height issue? The 3D looks perfectly

So I found I needed to make a pony wall if I was going to put windows and doors in the wall on the Lower level.

Then breaking things and dragging down worked great.

I pulled the daylight walls down without an issue. I broke the wall where I wanted and in 3D pulled the wall down. good

Then I pulled the frost wall down on the side (walkout area) and that worked fine. good

But when I pull the top down (1) to the top of my conc floor (walkout), it also pulls down, (2) and (3). Is there a way to lock a part of the wall so it is unaffected?

Thank you

1 hour ago, DRAWZILLA said:

I still like Chief much better for what I do, residential.

This is a bit of a bias community - LOL - but I am very excited to be learning Chief. I think I spent so much time (years of programming) and money on ADT that it was my investments that I felt obligated to. Three weeks ago I deleted the demo I was testing and told the sales guy I wasn't interested. He replied with something that made me want to at least spend an hour with him on a demo. So I downloaded it again, and things like hotkeys would not save in the demo so I purchased Chief a few days before my demo meeting. I have been having so much fun setting things up and testing everything that I am truly hooked and wish I checked it out years ago. 

1 minute ago, SNestor said:

Using hotkeys with Chief is one of the best ways to increase your efficiency with the program.  I made this video related to Hotkeys a while ago but you may still find it interesting.  
 

 

This is excellent! Thank you!

7 hours ago, glennw said:

Mark,

I am not 100% sure that we are understanding each other - but I could be wrong.

When I say you can have a shortcut using "A+Space", this means that when creating the shortcut, you press the Spacebar this still requires you to press A and then the Spacebar when executing the shortcut.

This does not preclude you from have shortcuts like "AA", "AAA", "AAB", "AAC", "ABB".

Is the one thing that is precluding you from doing this, the fact that you have mapped your Spacebar to your Escape key?

I guess that means that you don't use you Spacebar as Select. 

If so, and if it were me, I would leave the Spacebar as the Spacebar. 

How did you add the Shift key to your shortcuts without using a simultaneous shortcut?

This is a great tip! I'm going to give it a try - thank you!

37 minutes ago, glennw said:

It's amazing how fast you can things built by just  using the auto features of Chief

.

ie, my template plan allows me to draw 3 or more closed walls and without doing another thing I get a 3D model that has floor and ceiling platforms, a roof, external dimensions, the room has a fill (confirmation it is a closed room), wall, ceiling, floor and roof framing, foundation, attic walls, etc...etc, as well as things like auto elevations......and these are just the basics.....

As I start to edit the basic plan, things auto update and rebuild...like external dimensions, foundation, roof.......

 

I knew it worked this way but it is exciting to see it all happen by my hand . Thank you for the encouragement 

1 minute ago, DzinEye said:

I've done the same as far as keeping nearly all hot keys reachable with my left hand in home position on the keyboard.  From the wish it were like AutoCad dept.... with hot-keys, I often wish it were like AutoCad where you have to 'Enter' (for which I used the spacebar) to input any typed command... thereby allowing single letters to work as hot-keys and still allowing those letters to be used in other multi-key hot-key combinations.   I lost 15-20 single key hot-keys because of that disability.

Thank you! I was a big space bar user also and miss the single keys, but I have to admit that as I work and set up my defaults and draw a test plan at the same time, I am assigning hotkeys and I am beginning to enjoy the flow. From what I have drawn and and fine tuned to produce what I want, I am feeling overjoyed with Chief and how it will produce documents in what I believe will be faster than in AutoCAD. I could produce a simple 1500 sq.ft. home in maybe 4 to 6 hours - Done! So I will be using that reference to see how Chief performs with how I am getting things in place. Mind you that while I place some furniture for the client to see in 2D, I am now looking forward to showing them a realistic model. I have accepted most of the Chief defaults in many areas, and so my plans will look different than before, but I am very happy with what will be produced. 

I will add, that the tip above that I added is very cool and a quick way to change the selection of objects. It's a tip to use with a hotkey instead of finding the tool icon!

44 minutes ago, joey_martin said:

 

I stopped reading after that....

I'm sorry you have a specific perspective on the world by which you expect others to operate within. Us low-life AutoCAD users bow in awe of your "Chiefly" presence! 

I just purchased Chief less than 2 weeks ago and have been really impressed with how it works. Yes, I have run into things that I find do not work for me. One big part is the use of AutoLISP, where I spent years learning and programming ADT to work just the way I wanted. This is a huge investment (years of my life) to let go of. One can only wonder why such a great software like Chief would not offer a programming language, and yet the more I learn the more I realize I do not need it. 

You may consider backing off a bit on the AutoCAD thing. There is a lot that makes up a life, and I am sure a lot that makes up your life, of which I can appreciate and applaud your accomplishments - I'm sure they are many. But try not to lose sight on others who also have spent their livelihood learning and growing in ways that others would also appreciate and applaud.

Im sure you have a lot to offer here in this forum and so I look forward to learning from you!

3 hours ago, parkwest said:

When I first started using Chief... my biggest issue was trying to get Chief to work the way I wanted it to.  

 

Life became easier when I decided to just do it Chief's way and use the problem how it was designed to work.

 

It will hopefully cut down on your learning curve...

Quote

Amen....stop banging your head against the wall or trying to make this program like the program you left.

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.

1 hour ago, parkwest said:

Would draw wall, then editing dimensions not work?

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

1. Select the wall
2. Enter Alt+C
3. Select the move grip and drag in the direction where you want the new wall to be added
4. Hit the Tab key
5. Enter the Distance and Enter key or OK

2 minutes ago, Dermot said:

If you want the program to work differently, then I would encourage you to submit an actual feature request.  We don't monitor the Q&A forum looking for hidden feature requests.  To make a feature request, you should make a post on the suggestions forum here:

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...

58 minutes ago, robdyck said:

In my region, the framing at that corner would follow the exterior of the foundation. And yes, that would leave a small offset inside the room which I assume is a garage. 

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!!

1 minute ago, solver said:

This? Make the wall on the right a pony wall with the break matching the left wall.

 

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

6 minutes ago, solver said:

 

This is mostly a curiosity question. What's the purpose of the ledge?

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.