HumbleChief

Curious, don't most users have their own defaults for each floor set up in Chief?

I think you are correct Joe. There's no reason that railing walls should need any special treatment (use object settings) to show in a ref layer. But good to know Michael. BTW how does one change a railing wall to "Solid"?

There's no reason you shouldn't be 'truly confused' by any XOR setting as you are not a software engineer, even though it is assumed, as a user you have a similar knowledge base. Both those settings are very confusing but "Use XOR Drawing" should not be in any dbx anywhere any time in a user friendly user interface without a clear explanation or some plain English terms so users can understand WTF "Use XOR Drawing" means. Another very clear case where the engineers got in to the user interface where they do not belong. Right now I just click around those setting until the ref layer looks correct but never really know why. From the Help Menu "Use XOR Drawing changes the color of lines in the Reference Floor that are drawn on top of other lines. Lines with identical properties do not display. When unchecked, the Reference Floor color does not change, and identical lines are not suppressed." There HAS to be a better, clearer way to explain what XOR Drawing is intended to represent than the complex engineering term that is currently there.

Never realized such a tool exited - thanks. May not help the OP with all the details but should help a bit.

That's a good video unless you want to really understand how the defaults effect the plan Scott was drawing. Without that you get nothing like what he ends up with. Of course one needs to understand defaults to understand Chief (it is mentioned @ 10:15 in the vid) but there 3 or 4 that effect the plan, some over riding another. Foundation; Floor/Ceiling platform; Current Floor; and Room Type defaults all effect different parameters. I've figured it out over the years but again the video is a perfect example about how the complexities of Chief can be glossed over to present what looks like a very easy to use, fun, automatic, piece of software. Apologies starting now, as I've complained about the structure dbx for far too many years and far too many posts. Chief has no intention of changing same and I'll just muscle through as I need to and rant over. Your help is always appreciated but I'm over trying to understand the logic behind Chief's structure dbx and beyond. Again thanks for your help...

Yes, and your posts are always well thought out and helpful but I think in this day and age a modern interface should simply make sense, not kinda sorta make sense, and where's the logic? If I could understand the logic maybe I could follow it but the logic is buried deep within a software engineer's brain not to be shared in a 'logical' manner with the users. Which I think points to the problem. IMO software engineers should not get anywhere near a UI. Is there video showing how each control works and is expected to behave? I've searched and never found one. Why is that? How can there be a floor in the crawl space? What's the minimum height of a stem wall when it behaves nothing like a minimum? WTF is a minimum garage height and why would one care? Set a default and watch it change unless you set all 3 or 4 defaults and then have some over ride others? Why? What's the plan? What's the logic? What are the defaults for? Someone tell me in a way that can simply be understood and maybe I'd have a small chance of understanding. I have a helper who is pretty bright and we continually get lost trying the simplest of floor/ceiling height tasks. Been using the program for almost 20 years and still have no idea why the words are what they are and why they mean something different than plain English. Again the saddest part is there is not even a head fake of concern or the impetus to change the oldest most dated interface I've ever seen. I do manage to get through every job but am angry and frustrated every time I need to do something even the least bit complicated. That's just not right in this day and age. The rant above is in no way meant to disparage or diminish your helpful OP, it's just that I cannot take the crazy sometimes. [/rant]

Maybe you are right Richard but for me I have NEVER used a more confusing floor structure interface than Chief's. Not only confusing but down right backwards and wrong when setting defaults and expecting them to behave as such. I've used the program for 20 years and still fight the illogic that goes in to setting floor/ceiling heights. Does that make me stupid? Maybe, and I don't doubt that my intellect can be suspect but there are so many things that simply make no sense (to me). The saddest part to me is that Chief has absolutely no desire (proven by the complete lack of interface changes and/or improvements) to create an easy to understand graphical interface for floor and ceiling heights/levels/stories/floors that even us morons can understand. I am fairly certain that the skill set to create a user friendly interface simply doesn't exist within the company and there seems to be no desire to either hire or teach that skill, again proven out by the years and years with no real changes. Please prove me wrong Chief, but the proof is in the pudding and this pudding is still very ,very confusing even though there might a slight improvement as you've illustrated.

Also remember that growing has its own risks and growing too fast can be fatal for your reputation. Can you find good help? I mean good help - we couldn't. Can you handle a LOT of work that an advertising campaign might bring in? It's each individual's call but growing slowly and organically (meaning growing within your client base, your true skill sets, word of mouth referrals instead of advertising) can create a slow growing, steady business that can survive the down times (which will come) as well as the good times.

I wonder how many busy Chief user here advertise heavily to stay busy. I don't and am very busy but I'm a one (sometimes 2) man shop. Anyone else had luck with advertising?

...other than find bad clients. Word of mouth is always the best but it does depend on your business model. We have businesses around here that advertise heavily, burn through lots of clients with a fair amount of unhappy clients - I've talked to them - but they are busy. If that's what you are looking for then you need a marketing plan that actually works and shows results. We chased google listings and all the other forms of marketing and all we got was crappy clients. All of our word of mouth clients were staller and remain clients to this day. Yup. But again depends on the business model you've chosen for your company.

I'd upgrade the hard drive set up - maybe the 1TB M.2 PCIe x4 SSD otherwise it looks pretty good.

Glad to help and glad you found some use from the videos. There are a LOT of helpful people here ready to lend a hand and one of the best forums for such things that I have been a member of.

Seems to be working now after a couple weird checks of that dbx - thanks Perry

Weird, I opened it and saw what I posted above, with the check box checked. Then I opened the dbx some other magical manner from another magical layout and it was not checked. I checked the box in that magical layout and now it seems to be working....Weird. REALLY appreciate the help!!!

Darn, Thought that was going to be it...

Cool and thanks for the response. I wasn't having the issue a while ago so perhaps the new update doesn't remember the printer choice? I'll live with it for now as calling tech or filing a report is a PIA and since no one else is experiencing it I'll have to write it off as user error or computer magic.

I call usually when I can confirm it's a universal problem and/or that it's not user error. I set it to print to Chief's PDF, print to PDF, close. I come back and it's set to my desk top printer. Change back to print to Chief PDF, print, close, rinse and repeat. Doesn't remember the Chief PDF printer. Just a bit annoying but not a show stopper. Did you notice our versions were not the same or was there a typo in there?

Thanks P

Complete print cycle to PDF. Not that big a deal to changes the settings each and every time but I thought it remembered the setting from a previous print. Maybe it's a setting I'm missing?

I guess I can assume that my computer is the only one that will not remember the previous printing setting like it used to? Nice to be unique...

Nice Mark....

Thanks Joe, learn a lot every time I do those vids...

Great point above...and this can be created with a curve bottom chord as well with a curved ceiling plane. All of the member sizes can be specified here:

Right you are and wrong I are about the lighting...wonder what's going on in the plan - oh yeah the plan....

There are additional lights but unless a light was added using the 3D>Lighting>Add Lights Chief's default light will remain. It could also be very bright for various reasons as other settings might have been changed. Adding a light using the 3D>Add lights command is a very simple test. Without a plan difficult to guess at all the options though. EDITED above