HumbleChief

I usually go back to the proposition that the good people at Chief are making business decisions that sometimes look like lazy programming or the lack of desire to "clean things up." Each user has a personal issue with some aspect of Chief, either the interface, in my case, or the lack of a specific feature for a specific task, or even some lack of functionality that seems like an obvious problem that should be fixed yesterday. But, I'll ask again, why would they fix such things? I think the structure dbx blows but why would they 'fix' or change it? That change most likely represents many 10's of thousands of dollars, likely low to mid six figures, and where's the impetus and/or the ROI to do so? They will sell exactly zero more copies of Chief to new users, will distract from new features that many users may not even use but WILL sell copies of Chief to new users, and satisfy a very few current users who aren't going to change software any way. So why change it? Why change or complete anything? The software has to function of course but it's the shiny new features that sell new users, not the silly unfinished features that cause current users to flee. Causes us to complain but won't cause us to leave, so there's no real motivation to make changes and "clean things up." If I'm correct about the motivation then it might be reasonable to assume Chief is making good, sound, business decisions, at the cost of creating great software (great in whose eye of course) by "cleaning things up" the little things. I wish they would, and your point above Graham, is well taken but I just don't see it, again strictly from a business standpoint. X11 was an amazing upgrade but a couple of improvements were worse (in my eyes) and a couple of things seemed unfinished as new features. Will Chief suddenly become a software company that responds to all the little things that need to be cleaned up? Or will they remain focused on new features that sell new seats, keeps them in business, and allows us to keep our selves in business?

My post was only meant to imply that Chief is aimed at the residential market, and being residentially focused, not that they did a good or bad job with that focus. I've been arguing the points you are making for at least 15 years and think there is simply no good business reason for Chief to become the program we think it should become. "The list goes on and on." Where's the motivation? Where's the ROI? A few users (among thousands that we can't know or perceive of their needs and expertise) moaning on a forum? I TOTALLY get it, don't exactly like it but totally get it. Am still happy they do not seem susceptible to some of the older hews and cries for them to expand in to more commercial building types and that was the intent and reason for the original post.

Kinda curious about the first video example. Would it really be that easy to replicate that exact garage condition in Chief? Zero experience in AC or Revit so hard to knock them but for residential homes it seems Chief is aimed squarely at that market and thankfully remain focused on same.

I remember watching this video a couple years ago and hearing the presenter claim just how fast one can get a simple building done in Revit. I never tried to duplicate the feat in Chief but know it would take far less time, by orders of magnitude. There was more than one cool feature but getting the job done was way too complicated for me. That's when my software envy wore off in a big way.

...and a used a material (Fir framing) that will frame?

Tools>Layout>Referenced Plan Files Change the referenced plan files here and all the pages in your Layout will ref your new plan, instead of one page at a time.

That's very very cool...Chief?

Have no idea and am sure I couldn't get there again if I tried...

The NewEgg pdf I posted above was from the Canadian NewEgg site. DOH, didn't even know there was such a thing. Was wondering why the prices seemed so high. I'm going to reconfigure another system.

That should indeed do the trick, unless you want a specific template for each borough in which case you would save them as templates, named accordingly and not necessarily use them your default.

Ah I see Glenn, looks like another way to 'match properties' but I like it better,

As a model's complexity grows and many times with plants, especially 3D plants and some furniture with many surfaces Chief can/will slow down even with a very fast system. You can throw money at the issue by buying the fastest desk top you can afford but keep your speed improvement expectations low as Chief just plain slows down with larger models. There are a couple tricks like closing your 3D views while working on your plan but I have a couple plans that takes 2 - 5 seconds between commands and I upgraded to the fastest Xeons available for my (admittedly aging) system and the fastest video card available at the time with zero improvement in speed. It's probably a basic computer architecture issue here but again don't expect blazing speed on larger models. Beyond frustrating but if your models get large and you have a lot of complex symbols and/or plants Chief will slow down and the only fix is to drop some cash on the fastest system you can afford. I have seen some videos of folks look like they are working real time with systems that seem to pretty fast but tread carefully, do a lot of research before you pull the trigger on a newer system. Lots of threads regarding same here on the forum.

One way to skin this particular cat but you might want to think about having your first floor set to 0" instead of -3/4" as it creates a much better platform for future room structure/height changes.

Tried it. Faster, better method me thinks. Thank Eric. I'm wondering does using the Object Eyedropper replicate ALL of the match property selections as if 'select all' were chosen in the match props dbx?

Created a test second floor, changed the floor structure in 1 of 3 rooms from 11 7/8" TJI to 9 1/2" TJI, locked the bottom of the floor to maintain the first floor height. Went to match properties and selected floor height/structure ceiling height/structure and then matched other rooms. Works great. Just an FYI for future...

Are you sure? Seems I've used that tool for same many times. There's a check box for ceiling structure, ceiling height, floor structure, floor height. Always question my techniuqes but seems to work from my experience.

Hmm...never thought of that. Do you think that might work better than matching properties?

The site is a site full of very helpful individuals who respond best when asked a simple clear question about the programs operation and/or how to solve a specific problem. Most forum posters don't know the history of every forum poster so it's hard to tell how much experience each has but not so hard to tell when someone posts with an attitude that's hard to give a helpful answer for. I agree the whole up vote down vote thing is childish but don't hesitate to post a clear concise question about any feature of Chief and many people will chime in to help solve your question.

Yeah sorry you do not want to change defaults as it won't help on both houses.

Hey Kelly, feel you on this but there's an order of steps outlined above that works but the order at least for me is important. If the post above is not clear what I did was raise the foundation floor by 36" (leaving the original house at 0" elevation). This made the first floor above too short. To raise that ceiling I went to the second floor above and raised that floor and it seemed to work OK. To lower the floors perhaps the same steps might work in reverse. Foundation first to desired height, then second floor to adjust first floor ceiling height.

I believe you are correct, but you can change the default heights/properties and apply that default for every room on that floor.

The door is in fact cutting the foundation wall because the second floor levels are -3/4" dropping the door sill in to the foundation wall below. Try raising the second floor level to 0" and that cut will disappear.

Brandt, check your gable fascia setting, the width and depth might be reversed for what you want.

I had a similar reaction to today's prices per NewEgg or Partspicker versus a pre-configured system. $375 is not worth the time for me to build the system myself but $900 gets a lot more interesting. I do seem to remember more substantial savings through NewEgg etc. in the past but maybe I didn't consider my time quite as valuable back then. BTW Rod, your NewEgg price had (2) CPU's listed in the total. Just a head's up.

...of course, tired of trying and may never use the textures anyway, just wanted to play Did you register Mick?