Thewoodmaster

When I use Sketchup to do models, there is a window that displays object properties when selected. Is there any similar such thing in Chief. What I'm trying to do is material take offs for siding, trim, paint, landscaping, concrete, etc. so total area and or volume would be helpful. Is there some way to do this?

I have a question about custom materials. I use chief on my desktop for design work, and then I open those files with my laptop to collaborate with clients at their homes when I meet with them. I keep the files saved to a dropbox location so they are available from either device. Is there a way to save custom items I add to my user catalog so they are automatically available regardless of which computer I open them with, like forcing Chief to save materials with the plan file? I know how to do this for sketchup, but can't find a way to do it for Chief, sometimes when I open the files with my laptop it says it cant find the files associated with custom library materials. Matt

So initially when I tried your trick, Joe, it wanted to snap the railings to everything around it, so what I ended up doing is setting the 2nd set of railings close enough to the originals to be able to line up the ends with the inside edge of the posts, but far enough away that it was out of "snap" range. Then I converted them to symbols and moved them where they needed to go. That allowed me to use the railing tool's ability to auto-space the balusters, and pick the newels/balusters I wanted- and not have the irritating snap function muck it back up, or have it try to stick extra newel posts where they weren't wanted. Thanks everyone for the insight. Matt

thanks, Joe So I'm not missing anything- there isn't a way to do it with the railing tool itself? It seems like there should be, but I have found the railing tools to be the least user friendly thing in this program.

Treating me like I'm an idiot with the "watch, listen, learn" comment is unnecessary, demeaning, and petty. It's also a good way to get people to not use this forum. That video is the absolute basics of railings, I watched it again like you suggested- there is absolutely nothing in the video that shows me how to do what I asked. If you have no idea how to do what I asked, then I will wait for someone that does. Matt

i need to put a newel post halfway between the full height posts what I need to do is put a newel post halfway between all of the full height posts, like most porches, because the full height posts are too far apart to not have an intermediate newel, and nobody wants full size posts every 6 feet. Similar to the attached photo. Right now what i have is 4 sections of railing with a room divider in the middle where the steps will go, and the room is labeled a deck. Is there no simple way to do this? I figured I have been missing something. I get that I can manually place posts, which is fine if everything is square or round, but that doesn't help if i want them to look like an actual newel post.

then how do i make it into a newel post

What's the easiest way to add newel posts between post to beam posts on a railing. I need to do a single intermediate newel post between the full height posts. Thanks, Matt

lol i didn't even know that was a thing.

My reference display layers are all black instead of red. All of the colors on the reference display layers are in red, but they don't show in red, even on new plans. I honestly can't figure out what i did. Untitled 1.plan Untitled 1.plan

Thanks Eric, I will watch your videos on YouTube, I haven't really utilized that for instruction, but it seems like that is where I need to start going. Matt

Thanks Eric, I've watched just about every video, many several times. I just didn't see you click the join roof planes button, so i thought there was a hot key you were using. I was not however aware that drawing a wall over the top of another wall replaced it. Thanks for the tip on selecting the roof plane to get to the settings. I notice you do a fair amount of your work in the 3d views, and there isn't much of that instruction-wise in the training videos. Once again, I really appreciate the help. Matt

What key are you holding to drag those walls to make the formatting transfer to the side walls, also what key are you holding to snap those roof lines together? Thanks, Matt

So is there a way to do a boxed eave on the house and an old style conventional eave on the porch?

Thanks for all the help, this program is great, but can be infuriating sometimes. This forum and all the people that help make it a much better experience. Here is a screen shot of the roof tab on the outside wall of the porch, I don't see an eave tab anywhere, am I missing something?

Thanks in advance for the help on this. So I'm trying to add an open porch to a house, did the basic house and then added a porch. The house and slab are existing (photo attached). I have several issues I tried to add the porch using railing tools, but the porch roof doesn't want to play nice with the existing roof, i get weird extra hips, etc. if i try to set the roof higher than the house I don't really want to turn off auto roof, because this may not be the final design, it's just the preliminary, and i would like to know why this is happening they want a different look on the roof on the porch, an exposed beam look, i cant figure out how to turn off the boxed eaves on just the porch without doing it to the whole house. I drew the slabs in first, because they were existing, then turned off the floor, but i cant figure out how to get the bottom section of the wall (railing) to go away. Weydert2.plan

For some reason i cant get drywall where the wall connection is under this dormer, I tried setting the tall wall to run through at the ends and that didn't work. I'm at a bit of a loss, i'm sure it's probably simple. Thanks, Matt Carraige house3.zip

I still can't get this to work on any of my drawings, when I try your suggestion my ceiling plane auto snaps to a location inside the drywall of the wall it's cutting and it isn't clean. Is there a way to force the ceiling plane not to snap to something?

So I got everything fixed except the stairs. I tried your pony wall suggestion, but the bottom part of my wall is hollow, and i couldn't figure out how to get the settings for the pony wall to make it look right.

This is an as built plan that's a carriage house built in 1890 that is being restored and the upstairs converted to living space. I'm having a few issues with this plan. First off, when I try to create a stair opening either manually, or using the stair opening tool it wrecks the roof above it. I put in a double wall on the outside of the stairs on the first floor, and that fixed most of it, but still get the ceiling all jacked up and a random wall framed down into the room from the roof above. The weird part is it doesn't show up in the room in the 3d perspective, only on the 3d framing view. I get that the simple solution is to just turn off auto roof rebuild, but I shouldn't have to do that to put in a stair opening. That forces me to wait until everything else is completely finished roof wise to build the stair opening, and that's ridiculous, especially when these types of plans often need to be modified at a later point, and then I would have to manually draw or modify roof framing, potentially several times. Secondly, I have generated two auto dormers, but for the life of me can't figure out how to get rid of the eyebrows generated in front of the dormers. They sit on top of an existing shorter wall that holds up the roof that's about 70" tall. I need to put a large patio door that will be half in the lower wall and half in the wall generated by the dormer. Tried exploding the dormers and manually editing the roof planes, but that wrecks the fascia and cornice work, or causes the walls to get all wacky. Tried setting the short walls to balloon through but that didn't work either. I turned off the auto framing and got the wall issue sorted out by having the short lower wall balloon through, but I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the eyebrow roof in front of the dormer without wrecking some aspect of the roof, and if we end up having to change the dormer size or layout, have to go through all of that manual framing etc. again. Third, and I have had this issue on other plans but just gave up trying to fix it, and just drew a wall to hide it, but how do I get a wall to generate along the top of the stairs here so that it's open below follows the stair angle and covers the side of the stairs. There should be an easy way to do that, virtually every house ever built has some iteration of this and on this particular plan there's not an option to just hide it with a full height wall. Thanks in advance for any help. Matt Carraige house3.zip Carraige house3.rar

Is there a way to prevent a deck from snapping to an outside wall when you move it close to the wall. I want to draw a freestanding deck and then move it next to the house without having it attach itself.

I cant for the life of me get the two inside mitered 45 corners to connect the stairs together, or get the small section by the wall to even draw the stairs. I also cant get the direction of the grain on the deck boards to run the right way. I tried copy the material and rotate it, but no luck. The stairs are just pissing me off at this point. Also why are the treads showing up as a single tread and not 2 deck boards. patio plan.plan

The Client 3D Viewer Android App- when I installed the client 3D Viewer App on my android tablet (Samsung Tab S8+), it wanted to link to my Drop Box with a giant blue Drop Box link on the left of the screen (which I did, that is actually where I store my plan files), Is there a way to put the 3d viewer files on there (Drop Box) as well? My tablet doesn't always have internet to connect to the chief cloud. I don't want to ask clients to connect to their internet because that seems presumptuous. Not all of my clients are tech savvy, so I would like to be able to show the 3d files on my tablet to clients without connecting to the internet. This would be possible if they were in my Drop Box as available offline. It seems like there should be a way to do this, or download the 3D files to be available offline, since the 3D viewer wanted to link to my drop box when I installed it.

I'm new to 3d viewer, and I figured out how to share the files from the cloud account, but when i open the 3d viewer it shows a link to dropbox, which i use to store all my plan files to easily switch between laptop and desktop, but I can't figure out a way to put a 3d viewer file on dropbox to share, and if there isn't a way to do it, why does the 3d viewer even have an option to link to my dropbox?