HumbleChief

Hey Joe, Was going to try and explain how Chief works and came up against this little bit of crazy.... Attached the plan cause I might need some help... floor_level_1_test.plan

Better yet make sure your attic walls are set to display - looks like both are missing in the view...

Can you draw a wall on the attic layer?

Hey Glenn, the fact that one can even go to the 'basement' level in a mono slab is crazy enough - the fact that one can create roofs over a sticky out portion of a mono slab foundation is not a feature I'd ever use nor request but I gave up fighting this battle with Chief long ago... Now on to more important things..are you getting any of that cyclone swell? The coast looks lit up and crazy for the past few days - jealous...

Kate, If the ridge is centered in the room then you have 2 different sloped roofs to get the 2 different wall heights. Set the roofs up accordingly. The closet can be a separate room with an 8 ft. ceiling or if you have a portion of the room that's 8 ft and not the closet use an invisible wall to define a room and set that height to 8 ft..

Thanks Ben your participation and input is much appreciated...

Good post Curtis and even though I think I might have suggested similar, you put it much clearer. Is it finally time for a layer manager? Hope so....

Your accusations are bit harsh IMO and I base my opinion (not information) on 20 years using the program and watching the changes that do not happen over those 20 years. Also based on meeting with the software engineers in Idaho as a select group of users and not seeing changes that were suggested and again 20 years of an approach that remains basically the same. Again different opinions, and I am not intending to attack the good people at Chief, which I have personally met and are simply great in every regard. I don't think this forum represents that many users and you should know that as I have posted that assumption and made that point many, many, times and I do not think that the engineers at Chief don't listen it's just that their view of how the software should work differs from mine (and many others) but I can live with that, and do, as I've stated again many, many times.

You are making my point and missing it at the same time. I have no engineering background so the coordinate system is a bit vague though learnable as I have done but I don't want to see it in an interface and I don't think the user should be exposed to such arcane pieces of information. This is an arguable point and you make a good one but I think your mind might appreciates the complexities whereas mine does not unless absolutely needed. Different strokes, and understand we look at these things from a different perspective but even from the diagram you posted I would choose 90 for the overhead view not -90, makes sense because I am a dummy. The larger point, for me is that I think the user interface should be less technical with a simple diagram that shows views from a graphical instead of technical information driven dialog box. Where any user can choose a view via a picture or circle shaped diagram, hiding the tech stuff. That's simply my preference not something I would assume all users would want nor appreciate in its simplicity.

Richard, couldn't agree more. I think you might have missed my quote above. There's so much that is counter intuitive, at best, but some people seem to have no to very little problems with it. Drives me crazy on almost a daily basis but am done fighting that losing battle....

Did not know this, thanks for the education....

Yeah Lew, I think as a consumer you would hope that the software team would take an approach as you've described above but it is not who Chief is as a software company. The incredibly intelligent (NOT being sarcastic or facetious) software engineers have injected that intelligence in to the user interface and assume that same level of understanding from their user base without a bridge between engineer and user. A non-engineer brain like mine needs to learn those engineering ways in order to maximize the software and it can be quite difficult at times. To make my point (which I have numerous times) I remember an older DBX where I was trying to a create direct overhead view of the plan. I was sitting there with an electrical engineer friend of mine and I went to the DBX and there was a value that needed to be entered to achieve that overhead view and we were just messing around and guessed 180, thinking that made some kind of sense. Nope. How about 90? Nope. How about 360? Nope. Kept messing around and discovered that -90 was the value needed to get an overhead view. Really? -90? Yes -90. Now of course all the software engineers knew this but as a user, I think, we should be insulated from that technical knowledge in the user interface. That DBX has since changed but the same engineering mentality pervades the interface, which should, in my opinion, be designed by a user interface expert not engineers. Again that is not who Chief is as a company and I don't see that changing, from 20 years of using the software, and have learned to use the software as the engineers have designed it as difficult and arcane as that might be at times. Still love the software but it's love/hate at times....

I think Chief's structure DBX just fits in to some people's brains and the logic is apparent. Others like myself find the logic baffling to say the least.

The structure DBX has to form the basis of everything that the program revolves around and is near impossible to change in a meaningful way. I've learned to live with it but not how it is designed to work. I've railed against its design and function for years, created videos showing absolutely inexplicable behavior yet it remains both the bedrock foundation and the Achilles heel of Chief. There's so much crazy in the structure DBX I think it just goes unnoticed over time. If you go to the foundation level of a mono slab there's a check box for "roof over this room" - I rest my case.

A single layer could be used in more than one layer set just ordered differently in each set. Same name different order in the list. Yeah it's a band aid at best and a bad idea at worst...Couldn't remember the modify all layer sets check box. Thanks for the reminder.

Yeah Rod, some kind of robust yet flexible Layer Set and Layer management tool would be nice. The one thing that seems to happen at Chief is that some things take a long time to implement but when they are Chief hits it out of the park. Maybe Layer Management will have a happy ending like Anno Sets and the new ref set feature...

+1

Thanks Ben, know you guys are busy and appreciate the time taken to respond. I have a feeling layers and their use and locations are hard coded in a way that might make any request to manage them a very hard row to hoe but it doesn't hurt to entertain the idea. Is there currently a way to list layers using prefixes (space, character, . letter) that can be unique to a single layer set as the video above asks?

Another idea that could work, or maybe already will but I don't know how. Re-ordering each layer in each layer set PER LAYER SET.

Apologies if this doesn't help....

Explained all that in the video above or am just really bad at communicating. The video above (I think most people don't actually watch them and that's cool) I explain my search through the plan that uses that layer as its default and can find nothing, no reference to it other than it's used. If I can't find it, it means that I am not so smart, which have confirmed many times, or there is no actual technique for finding those defaults and it is indeed as difficult as finding a ship "somewhere in the Pacific ocean." Is there a technique I missed? Is there a method we should know about? Is there a method at all? Would you please create a method when you get a minute.... Thanks

Nice when a plan comes together...I almost never know what I screwed up but somehow struggle to a solution. Glad I could help...

Seems to be holding OK with the steps shown in the vid but no guarantees that it will hold and I've seen MUCH squirrelier behavior from Chief. Also see Micheal_Gia's post above. I checked your plan and it looks OK but sometimes a room def structure will over ride a floor structure, "then you have a real bad day." Good luck,...

Great advice as always but this might be a pretty simple problem - unless I'm missing something...

Thanks Glenn. Kirk specifically referred to the names I had used with the word ANNO "prepended" to the name and that might be related to the ANNO set because of the word ANNO. Clearly ANNO is just a name I chose (bad decision many years ago but works for me) with no special relation to an ANNO set because of the name. Explained in video above. That doesn't negate your point in the least and you are probably correct about the relation of the defaults and ANNO sets but the job still remains 'big' with no where to specifically look to find those layers. Where to start? Been down this road a few times in the last many years and simply give up because there's no way my little brain can figure it out. Learned to live with the many layers, old and new, and always wanted a way to manage them. May not be reasonable considering how Chief creates and currently manages layers but once Ben or Kirk chimes it's hard not to try and keep their attention. EDIT: Glenn I think your last point is the most relevant,"It could be a big job!" My point and question is, how to make it a smaller job that even us boneheads can figure out....