DBCooper

I don't think the reference guide has a list of the built in macros. There are a few different things that can help though. 1. Select an object. Open the ruby console. Type in "owner.names". This should list all available macros. The list is not that easy to read though. 2. Create a text object with an arrow pointing to the object you want to know about. Put %object-properties% in the text box. It should list out all of the object properties and their current values and types. Very useful but a bit of a pain to find what you want when the list is long. 3. Select an object. Use the "match properties" tool. In the dialog that opens, I *think* that every property shown has a macro associated with it. If it says something like "Box Height" (for say a cabinet), then you should be able to use the macro %box_height%. I like using the match properties mostly because it is searchable and shows you the current values.

There are a couple of things you might want to try. First, you can unblock them (like Alan suggested). Second, if you really want to keep them blocked, you can make the "inside mullion depth" 0 which will make the trim flush with the wall and then set the interior trim material to the same material as the wall. This should look pretty good but you might get an extra line in vector views. In the picture below, the windows on the right are just two windows and the ones on the left using the technique I am suggesting.

I like Joe's suggestion of using "ceil" instead of "round" since I believe this will always round up instead of rounding down when you are less than 1/2 a unit. Wouldn't want your framers to cut things off too short.

If you don't want to see the hole under the deck, just open the terrain dialog and uncheck 'hide terrain intersected by building".

You can also use the "complete break" tool that should show up in the edit toolbar when you click on the the stair and then the break tool. Have you tried using %total_risers%? This should give you the total number of risers for all of the connected sections.

If you want it to the nearest inch, you can use "%length.round()%". if you want it to the nearest foot, you can use "%length.to_ft.round()%". If you want it shown in feet and inches but rounded to the nearest inch, you can use "%length.round().to_s("'-\"")%".

Look in the bonus catalogs, "MEP no 8, surface mounted electrical" probably has what you want.

I didn't notice any slow downs either. Must be something else going on. Maybe try a reboot? On a side note, I looked at your macro and didn't see anything that looked weird but I am definitely not a macro expert. One thing I thought though was that you could be using "owner.is_railing" to make sure you actually had a railing. Not sure but I thought that if you turned a railing into a wall that some of these other macros might still give you something back that makes you think it is a railing when it really isn't. Too bad there isn't a macro that would just tell you that it's a halfwall because that would make it even easier. Personally, I would just setup my railing and halfwall defaults to make the label what I want and not bother with the macro but that is only because I don't mess with macros that much.

I think you use the "s" key to skip dimension marks and you use the "shift" key to add them. I couldn't find the documentation on this and I can't remember where I learned this. Seems to be pretty well hidden though.

The update notes are here: https://cloud.chiefarchitect.com/1/pdf/documentation/chief-architect-x18-update-notes.pdf It looks like they just fixed a few things they thought were important. I heard that they are still working on other fixes that will go into 28.2 but I don't know when that is coming out.

If your plan is too big to attach, you could try creating a compressed .zip file to see if that will work. If it is still too big, you could try removing things that don't have anything to do with the problem (like fixtures and furniture) and doing a "save as" to a new file and then zipping that. If it is still to big, you could post it to a shareable online location (like dropbox or whatever) and then post the link.

Yeah, I have noticed some funky behavior that seems to be related to camera angles. My guess is that you don't really have them set to "show" and you are still using "automatic". In camera views, labels can be set to "show", "hide", or "automatic". When they are set to automatic, they will sometimes show and sometimes not. If they are showing and you don't want them to, then just force them to hide. If they are not showing and you want them to, then just force them to show. When you use the edit toolbar button, I think it will either force them to show or hide and it should turn off the automatic behavior. If they are not doing what you want when you have them set to automatic, you still might want to send this to Chief and "suggest" that they make the automatic behavior work better.

Wall heights are usually set based on floor/ceiling heights in the room dialog but you can override any of them by editing the height directly in a camera view. So this is probably either a room problem or a wall problem. You can usually fix both by using the "reset to defaults" tool. Just select floor/ceiling heights and wall tops/bottoms for "all floors" and they should all be set back to the defaults. If that doesn't work, then you might want to post the plan so someone can poke around in it. It could have to do with the floor/ceiling structure or maybe even something else.

Instead of drawing a brick wall and then changing it to a railing, you might be better off just drawing a railing wall to start. To fix your walls, you might be able to open the dialog and change the wall type from a "brick" type into a "railing" type. The walls are probably going to resize though and then you will need to move them to the proper positions.

Btw, there are lots of changes to room labels (and other labels as well) in X18. Room label should work more like other object labels now but there are also some new features that let you do things like you could in X17. First, and probably most important, when you select a room (or any other object) and you want to do things just to the label, you can click on the "edit label" tool. This will open up a new toolbar with a bunch of label specific tools:

You have complete control over the layer that room labels are on (and any other labels):

You can turn it off here:

Check to see if your plan is really far away from the origin (0,0). This is known to cause all kinds of strange problems. If so, then you can use "edit area' to move it back close to the origin. See if you have any "shark fins" or other objects that are shooting out into outer space when you create a 3d perspective view (not an overview). Sometimes when you have an object that shoots out, the camera view will be zoomed so far out, you can't actually see anything. When this happens, you need to find the object and remove it or figure out what is shooting out and fix it. Facia boards and moldings can sometimes do this when they have bad connections. If it's not one of those, you might need to post your plan (or contact tech support).

I haven't used it yet since I don't have either an iphone or ipad. I only found this really basic info on the Chief web site so you will probably need to contact tech support for more help. Can my client scan a room and share the 3D model with me? Yes—once the room is scanned, place the model on the Chief Cloud, then use the sharing link. The sharing link generates a share code that can be used to access the model. Note, if your client does not have a Chief Architect account, they will need to create one.

They show up for me as soon as I turn on the layer called "roof labels". If they don't show for you, you might want to post your plan or contact tech support.

Check to see if your walls above and below are aligned. Check to see if they are set to the default top and bottom height. Check to see if they are using the same wall types and materials. If that doesn't help, then post your plan.

Room labels and living area labels (which is just a room label for an exterior room) are pretty different in X18. From what I can tell, the "suppress living area label" in the general plan defaults only prevents any new living area labels from getting created. So if you do it before you draw any walls, or in your template plan, then you shouldn't get any living area labels. The easiest way to get rid of one that is already in a plan is to just click on it and then use the "display label" button to turn it off. Personally, I liked how you could just select it and delete it in X17 since that was even easier.

So there are a number of things you need to do. First, you need to make sure your drawing sheet and your drawing scale are correct when you are in your elevation view. You set these up in the "drawing sheet setup" dialog. Then make sure your line weights are setup for the layer set you are using in your elevation view. If you turn on "print preview" while in the elevation view, everything should look the way you want it to and if it doesn't then you need to recheck the above. If everything looks great in the elevation view, all you need to do is send the view to layout using "plot lines" with "use edge line defaults" and "use pattern line defaults" turned off and it should look the same on the layout page. If it doesn't then you need to check your layout page drawing sheet setup. If you can't figure it out, then you should probably post both the plan and the layout file so someone can poke around and give you better suggestions. Also, here is a tech article with some good general info: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00923/understanding-and-adjusting-line-weights.html

It's always worked that way, more or less. Try it in X17 and you will notice that when you change the room type that it would automatically check the box for "show room label". The big difference is that the "show room label" checkbox was right there where you could see it instead of on the label page where it is handled now. Another difference is that in X17 there was a preference setting that allow you to turn on this automatic behavior that looks like it is not in X18. Not sure why they got rid of that though.

I have seen that before with two rooms that were both marked as garages that had a wall with a door between them. I can't remember what the workaround I used was. Might want to try changing one room to a different type but if that doesn't work you could always just fill the hole with a poly solid. I can't make this happen in X18 so it looks like they might have fixed this.