HumbleChief

Funny Kev, some people have no problems but for me they are a severe drag on my system slowing it to a crawl. Do you use a PDF utility? Foxit? Nuance?

Somewhere in my memory I could have sworn the Chief guys said that PDF's were converted to images in Chief. If not then I can understand the speed issues. If so then what utility are they using that's so much slower than Foxit's converter? Curious.

I have had many, many problems with PDF's in Chief over many versions. Slow, Slow, Slow, when viewing page to page. Slow to print. Overwhelms my printer's memory and prints only partial files/PDF's so I have reduce the resolution. Any PDF printed higher than 144 DPI chokes everything if I have large PDF's (full page) in the layout - painful at best. So... my PDF utility, Foxit PDF, has a feature - convert to image. Hit the button save to a new file name. Now everything is a PNG which loads at least 10 times faster page to page in Layout, prints PDF's (now PNG's) without sections missing and doesn't overwhelm my printer, without any noticeable degradation in quality. Sweet. Hope that helps someone else.

BTW you guys are the greatest, really appreciate the help.

Re-visited the symbol and finally got it to 'union'. Looks OK in Chief.

Nice Johnny, only problem is I can't change the distance between the arch as a symbol - don't know how at least. How did you do that? SU?

I ended up getting there and chose to create the arched piece in elevation, then added the bottom pieces but could never get them to really 'union' together so there's a visible line between the 3 pieces. Never got any of the 'subtraction tools to work either. Seems so simple but never got the right combination of shapes to 'subtract'. Just not that smart with dumb tools. How'd you do it Greg?

Not very, Johnny.

Pretty sweet Greg, has those darned faceted edges along the curve but looks good.

OK, That was a horrific exercise in torture. Just don't have the time or will to learn such ridiculously complex and arcane 3D tools. Got it done but really not easy to understand Chief's 3D tools. Never actually got it right but it looks OK. Thanks for the encouragement at least.

That's a pretty cool product Gary. Did you run into any code or engineering problems when spec'ing that bracket? I live in CA and never know what to expect if I were to spec that product on a job.

..or look on page 8 in the PDF linked above - look for, of all things, the detail titled 'exterior deck attachment'. Might be what you're looking for.

http://www.woodbywy.com/document/tj-4000/

X7 has an automatic stairwell tool.

Saw this in a previous thread where the exterior wall material had no thickness, perhaps check that out first.

...or post the plan....

Looks like it might be ceiling planes from a second floor room. If it is, find the room and check 'no ceiling' for that room.

Nice work Mike.

I'm afraid you'll need a 10 year old neighbor kid for that...

Your efforts and energy are very much appreciated Wendy. You are a true asset to this community. (And yes that's a blatantly transparent attempt to encourage you to post more tutorials and helpful information)

Very well put Wendy, appreciate your input.

I agree Buzz, Some of the techniques in Chief are way too complicated including, if not most especially, Anno Sets. The good thing is that once Anno Sets are learned and set up, they don't have to be changed very much in the future and their usefulness is undeniable. It's also good to remember some of the posters on this forum represent a very elite user group and can sometimes forget about new users and the steep learning curve Chief possesses. They also forget that the percentage of users who even use Anno Sets, let alone understand them, could be a very small percentage of total Chief users. I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a large percentage that doesn't even use Layers effectively but that's the nature of all of this kind of software - it's complicated. Is Chief more so? Maybe in some regards but there's no short cuts to learning any of the design software and as has been posted above Anno Sets, even though complicated, are a very powerful tool and once understood will save tons of time.

Nice Bob, Keep us posted on progess please.

One of the best parts about Chief is how flexible it can be. You want your text on the active CAD layer? Why not? Should it be there? For you yes, for others maybe not, Use the tools the way they work best for you.