HumbleChief

Very helpful Scott. Never used those labels before. Would love to have the text relocate and keep the offset, and having a leader line would be epic.

Nice Yusuf - very ambitious. I have the same question as Perry.

I think you must mean Layout instead of plan?

It can't be that hard to test the plan and see what problems come up, if any. I wouldn't do anything drastic like start over until you know it's unworkable as is. Do a bunch of "Save As" as you proceed to catch any problems and see how it goes.

I agree.

it does...

See - I told you it was easy. I think this is one of those things I forget to remember...zzzz

I constantly fight this 'feature' and have just learned to ignore it. Sometimes the counter top will move to the front, sometimes not. PIA for sure. Here's a plan conuter top 1.plan

What are your current settings?

If they aren't worried they wouldn't be in business. Sketchup has always been an amazing 3D piece of software but Chief and SU are really apples and oranges IMO. If you look at the model shown at approx. 6:50 in the video and you built that in Chief it would take a decent user 20 - 30 minutes, maybe an hour to get a few more details done. I bet it would take a SU user at least twice as long, depending on how many components they have in their library but the paradigms are so vastly different there's almost no comparing the two soft wares. I've watched a couple of videos of SU users building a house and was blown away at how much has to be done to get walls and windows and roofs compared to Chief but what you end up with IMO is vastly more flexible but you earn that flexibility. I very much admire SU users and their abilities but I need to design homes quickly and even though both programs have pretty steep learning curves I prefer Chief's approach.

That's a great call Mick

Annotation Sets are an absolute must learn tool. Not easy but the (very) basics are you set up an Annotation Set for each plan view type. i.e. Floor Framing will have it's own Annotation Set and within that set you set dimension layers, text layers, CAD layers etc. When you change to that Anno Set all your dims, text etc. are on the proper layer. Now you want to work on the Foundation. you switch to the Foundation Anno Set and all your dims, text etc. are on their own, separate Layers. Complex but no short cuts. Google Annotation Sets Chief Architect - there's quite a few videos out there. http://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-01167/

Great thread, great tip - Thanks for following up Arun

Interesting observation. Maybe send Scott the PDF instead of posting it here so it stays confidential.

...been making this point for a long time and it's time for Chief to change. Keep the genius software programmers designing software. Let the users or some other group design how those tools should be used. We need some easy to understand and easy to implement interactive tools just like it was 2015. Did I just type easy twice?

Check parcels next door and see if you can get any 10 digit number that should get you the proper Parcel Map and you can get the number by coordinating with goog maps

No can open

Post the plan dude

Can you ask your truss guy to send the files in PDF? that's the only way I've ever gotten them - sounds like he sent them in Postscript by mistake.

Yeah Scott, this is such a great tip, I wish Chief had an easier way to access these kinds of tips, so very useful.

Agree Scoot - well stated.

Looked for hours one day - ended up using a molding p-line.

Great vid and great trick to change upper walls to no room def. - I will use that trick and thank you. This has caught me out numerous times but I'm wondering if your diagnosis is correct that the user changed the ceiling height then built the upper floor? Why and under what circumstance would they do that? Especially in this case, why would a user change the height of that entire room to something as off the wall as 126 3/4"? I think Chief did it. My theory is that Chief will make subtle changes as well based on factors not so obvious and those changes change the ceiling height unbeknownst to the user. This theory of course cannot be proven except under some kind of perfectly controlled condition that's repeatable but I'll bet the steps could be reproduced (not by me I tried for way too long) that caused that change and I also think it's one of those secret parts of Chief that will catch most users in the same situation. If I'm wrong and the user actually went to that room and changed the height to 126 3/4" then its simple user error and something I'll be very aware of in the future. If it took something else that the user was completely unaware of then Chief needs to find a way to change its behavior, make it more predictable, or add a warning about changing the default ceiling height. All that is not to diminish that great vid nor the great tip you posted - it will save me hours of work in the future. Thanks again.

This is the one I use. Had a cheaper one but it sounded - uh - cheap. http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Desktop-Microphone-Black-Silver/dp/B00009EHJV

Got that little bugger fixed but it wasn't easy. Created a wall on the floor above with siding both sides then patched the end with a P-Line solid. WALL END FIX.plan