DBCooper

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.

Are you automatically building the wall framing or are you manually building it? It's pretty easy to just select a wall and say "build framing for selected object" to build it. If it doesn't actually build any framing, then it is something wrong with your wall. 99% chance that you did something to the wall type when this is the case. Most likely you don't have the main wall layer set to be framing*. If it's not that, then you should probably post your plan. *In Michael's picture above, note how the "framing" checkbox that is below the table is not checked. You need to make sure that it is checked for the wall's "main layer".

See if this tech article about making a split level entry helps: https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-00269/creating-a-split-level-entry-with-a-landing.html

Have you tried moving the panel around using the "panel offset"?

Yeah, I think that's what doors do when they are in railings. It usually looks fine when you are putting a gate into a railing or fence but looks silly in this case. One thing you could do is just make a section of lattice as a symbol and then manually place it above the door. You might also want to send it into Chief and ask them for the ability to make the wall cutout above the door optional.

In your picture, it looks like it should work. Make sure both stairs have "allow wrap" checked. Make sure both stairs are the same length. Make sure that both stairs have the same top and bottom heights. Other than that, you might need to post the plan or contact tech support.

@KilianDrafting You might want to check out the preferences for new plans. There are some settings that might help. I haven't really played with them but this is what the documentation says: ../../../Resources/img/num/num03.pngDesigner/Client InformationSpecify where initial Designer/Client Information is drawn from in plan and layout files. See Text Macros. Default Designer/Client Information - Click the Define button to enter the global default designer and client information that applies to all Chief Architect plan and layout files. Instead of using the global defaults, you can specify that the information in New Plans and New Layouts be drawn from the template files used to create them. See Plan and Layout Templates. The Copy Designer Information from Templates for options let you specify whether Designer Information is drawn from templates or the global defaults. The Copy Client Information from Templates for options let you specify whether Client Information is drawn from templates or the global defaults.

Try using the "edit active view" tool while you are in a material list. This should let you turn things on and off. And if you always want your material lists to be this way, change your material list defaults in the "default settings" dialog.

I think you are doing it the hard way. All you really need to do is create a new dimension default that locates your electrical objects and puts them on the right layer. Then if you setup a saved plan view that switches to that dimension default and the layer set you want you should be good to go. You could also setup other defaults so that your text and cad all go on the right layers as well. Check out this tech info about using saved plan views: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-03185/understanding-saved-plan-views.html https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/2421/saved-plan-views.html

When you select a railing you should see a tool called "move newels". This should let you move the newel posts around to where you want and you should be able to add an extra one if you need it. This tech article has some basic info: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-03195/manually-adjusting-newel-posts.html

Not that I know of. We have some new ways to add fill styles to rooms in X18, such as using layers or setting them up in your defaults, but they still won't go into doorways. You might want to report this to Chief and maybe they will fix it some time. For now, one workaround you could use would be to generate room polylines, add the fill style to them instead of to the rooms, and then manually edit them to go into the doorways. Need to make sure the polyline is set to draw in the back and you will still won't get any fills for your door panels or trim (which is another thing I wish they would add).

Are you using X17 or X18? If using X17, are you on the latest update? If not, then you should get it because if it was a bug then it may have been fixed. I just looked through the update notes for X17 but I didn't see anything that looked like it was related though. I also played around in X17 for a bit but I did not get any point markers. I tried everything I could think of with the point-to-point tool and nothing showed up. The only other obvious thing you should check for is to see if you have accidently turned on arc centers. If you are using the latest version of X17 and you don't have arc centers turned on, then you might want to post your plan, or at least a picture of what you are seeing, or maybe tell us what you are doing that causes the points to appear, or if all else fails, then contact tech support. Other than that, I can't think of anything else that might help.

You need to look for something that is creating a break in the ceiling platform, such as a hole or room divider or whatever. See if you can spot it using cross section views. If you can't find it, then try posting the plan for someone to poke around in.

My recommendation is to get rid of everything in the plan that takes up a lot of space. For example, I would get rid of all of your furniture and any other interior decorations. If you need to create any decorated views for marketing or whatever, you can always make a copy of the plan with only the rooms needed and none of the other bloat, so that you can "stage" your views. Or even better, you could take your clean views and use AI to generate the presentation views. You might also want to get rid of any data that was imported into the plan, such as cad, images or pdfs. You can keep things like this and all of your stock details in a separate plan file to keep it out of the main plan file. Here is a tech article that has some good general info about dealing with large projects: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00521/troubleshooting-slowness-in-chief-architect-projects.html

So Chief really has two different ways of designing a house. One way is to use the space planning tools to place room boxes that you would then use to layout your plan. Once you have them organized the way you want, you would then use the "build house" tool to create walls around these spaces and at that point you would be done with them. This is a tech article that has some more info about using the space planning tools: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00349/using-the-space-planning-tools.html The other way, which is probably way more common is to just draw your walls to create the room spaces. You can then go into each room and set the room type if you want them to have labels and other properties specific to that room type. For example, designating a room as a garage or a deck will have very different properties by default than say a bedroom. As for getting started, I recommend the quick start videos (especially the floor plan basics one): https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/playlists/138/quick-start-video-series.html

Click in the bathroom and then look at the status bar to see what you have selected. It is probably one of the following: 1. A "Room Label". Click the "next" button or use the tab key to select the next thing below it. 2. A "Room". Click the open button and take a look at the fill style. If it has a fill style, turn it off. I'm guessing it's not this since the room fill style should always be drawn in the "back" so it won't hide other objects. 3. A "Room Box". This means that you placed a space planning room box to create your bathroom. Unless you are trying to create your whole floor plan using the space planning tools, this really isn't how you make a room a bathroom. Generally, you draw all your walls and then you open up the rooms and change them to the type you want. Just delete the room boxes you created and change your room types manually. 4. A "Standard Polyline" (or some other polyline type). If you created a polyline type on top of your room and it has a fill style, it can hide objects in your room. It's often better to use the room fill style instead but there are times when you need custom polylines because the room fill won't be exactly what you want. If you have a custom polyline in the room, you can always change the draw order so that it is drawn in the back and other things will display on top of it. My best guess is that it is #3 since it looks like you are a new student user. If it's not one of these, then you might want to post your plan so someone can poke around in it.

See if this tech article helps: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00321/matching-building-and-terrain-heights.html

Actually, you only need to single-click on the floor number. Another way to get to the reference display settings is to use the "edit active view" tool. This lets you change lots of other settings for your current view, such as the layer set or all of the current defaults. This is the same dialog you get if you are editing your saved plan views.

Try this: 1. File->import->import settings from plan/layout 2. Choose the file you want to import the settings from 3. Expand the drop down for layer sets (or saved plan views) 4. Choose the layer set(s) you want or check the top box for all of them 5. Choose "replace" or "rename" if you are trying to replace the existing one or if you want the imported ones to have different names. You can find more info in this tech article: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00386/importing-settings-from-an-existing-plan-layout.html

I think I can tell what you did just from your pictures. You swapped your rows and columns and you set your minimum rows to 10. When swapped, it should probably say "minimum columns" instead of "minimum rows".

You might be able to get the wall the way you want by editing the shape in an elevation view. I had ok results but it was a bit of a pain. You could always just create the piece of wall using a polyline solid and that might be easier.

Try here: