DBCooper

You could try adding a "complete break" to the stair and then turning off the railing on the top section. You can do this by using shift-select on the top section so you can turn off the rail and not turn it off on the lower section. You could also try turning off the automatic rail and manually draw a railing that is set to "follow stairs".

Not sure why you would get the extra lines with the wall cabinets but like others mentioned, sloppy connections could easily cause that. The island looks like a very old Chief bug. If you have 2 cabinets bumped against the back of one other cabinet, you will almost always get an extra line. Someone at Chief told me years ago that cabinets can only make a one connection per side so anytime you have a side bumped against more than one cabinet you will get stray lines. The easiest way around this is to just turn on the module lines so you will see all of the boxes.

I'm not sure what HD Suite can and can't do, but you should be able to set the newels to either "post to ceiling" or "post to beam". You will need to make the railing "open" and turn off the top and bottom rails too. You might have better luck on the hometalk forum here: https://hometalk.chiefarchitect.com/

Are you sure you posted the right version of the plan? I'm not seeing the same thing as you and I am seeing the logs poking through the roof instead. My best guess is that you are seeing an attic floor sticking out. I have had that happen to me once and I fixed it by setting the floor layer to air gap.

Might want to check out these tech articles: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00001/backing-up-chief-architect-content.html https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00091/restoring-chief-architect-content.html If that doesn't help, I would contact tech support.

Are you trying to send them a floor plan or a 3D model? Might depend on the product but according to their web site, you can import autocad 3D files (DWG) but I couldn't find anything about 2D files. https://design.support.cyncly.com/hc/en-us/articles/20596586346513-Import-and-export-files Probably need to ask someone who has used 2020, like @MarkMcmaybe?

This tech article might also help: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00070/adding-a-belly-band-to-a-structure.html

This works in a cabinet label: %height - countertop_thickness% If you want it to show in a schedule, you can just turn on the "box height" column. If you want something else, one of the macro experts will have to help you.

That's what I thought.

Post your plan.

Select one of the objects, like the soaker tub. Look in the ALDO. What text style is it using for the labels? Now switch to the other saved plan view. Do the same thing. What you will probably find is that it is not using the same text style in both layer sets. The OOB defaults use "default label style" for the working plan view and "1/4" text style" in the electrical plan view.

BTW, I'm not trying to suggest that you were not smart by doing it wrong and I totally get why you tried to do it wrong, but once you learn the "Chief" way, I think you will realize the tool is actually pretty slick and could save a lot of time. Anytime I can do things without having to open up a dialog and dig down multiple levels (especially with the cabinet dialog), I think I am just a little bit happier.

When you use the "convert curve to polyline", a dialog should pop up that lets you choose the number of sides. Depending on how smooth you want it, you could use something like 24 or 36 and it should look pretty good. When you use the "convert polyline" tool, you will want to choose "hole in roof". When you click ok, the roof hole specification dialog should open. I had better luck when I used "plumb sides" instead of "square sides".

No, you can't change it after first placing it. If it's the wrong type, just delete it and place a new one in the right place and then just move or copy it. It mostly only matters for the dynamic defaults. If Chief thinks it's an exterior door, than all of your dynamic defaults are going to be set from your exterior door defaults which might not be what you want if it is really an interior door.

You're doing it wrong. Watch this video: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/1598/using-the-library-painter.html

Draw a circle on the roof. Use convert curve to polyline. Use convert poly to make it a roof hole.

I think this depends on the type of library item. As far as I can tell, it is on by default for some things, like cabinet door styles and hardware, and off for other things, like fixtures and furniture. I am guessing that the two shelf symbols you are using are actually different symbol types. Regardless, you can always toggle it on or off if you want but if you select a new library object it looks like it will reset.

Got it. One person's "essential feature" is another's "never used" one because we all use the program a bit differently. I guess it really only matters when someone is doing it the hard way just because they don't know any better.

So do you only use the out-of-the-box defaults for all your style settings? Or, do you use some other method of changing the styles?

It can be super useful so you might actually be missing out. Where it is really useful is not just replacing whole objects but when using it to replace sub-objects. For example, changing cabinet door styles. While in a camera view, find the door style you want in the library browser, and then in the edit toolbar click on the "plan mode" button and then just click on the cabinet door you want to change. Bam, all the cabinet doors in the plan will change to the new style. Want to change the handle or knob, you can do the same thing. Stair and railing balusters can be changed the same way without ever having to open a dialog box. Lots of other stuff works too. So in your video above, if you designed your closet with shelves that all had the hangers and you wanted to replace them with shelves that didn't, you could just select the new one in the library and use the replace tool to swap them out.

Replace from library. Basically, when you hover over something and you get that cursor, it means that you can replace the existing thing with the new thing from the library.

Check out this video: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/335/using-a-framing-reference.html?playlist=93 If that doesn't help, then you probably need to post your plan.

Post the plan and someone can probably figure it out.

You might want to let other people know how you solved your problem in case they run into the same thing in the future. I think all you really need to do is to create a custom material using the image. This tech article covers the basic idea: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00007/importing-and-applying-a-custom-picture-to-a-frame-computer-or-tv-screen.html

I didn't know anything about skm files but when I googled them I did find this info that might help: skm files are actually renamed zip archives. If you change the extension to zip, you can find the image file (and some xml files describing certain properties). So basically you cannot convert an skm file into a jpg file but you can extract it from inside. So it probably isn't too hard to make a new Chief material using the extracted jpg but you might have to play around with the material settings to get the right look.