DBCooper

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Everything posted by DBCooper

  1. Chief also has a training video on "dutch gables": https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/1517/manually-drawing-a-dutch-gable-roof.html?playlist=95
  2. Have you tried removing the backdrop in Chief before exporting the model? I haven't used the viewer before but this is what I would try first. You could also try saving the camera with color off (or maybe as a vector view). If those don't solve your problems, you could also try the desktop viewer. As long as the person you are sending the plan to has a good computer, it should look just like it does in Chief.
  3. The short answer is yes. You just need to make sure that you choose electrical when you build the symbol.
  4. Chief has always worked this way. When you move a camera between rooms, the program changes the lighting but it won't update until you do something to force it (like editing the window). This can be handy if you are trying to view a small room like a bathroom and need to back the camera up to see it but don't want the lighting to change. If you were to tile your camera view and plan view, you could see how the camera goes in and out of your deck room. Usually F5 will fix the lighting so I don't know why this is not working for you. You could also do a rebuild 3d but this seems like a sledge hammer solution. I also don't understand why the deck room lighting is not the same as the outside lighting. My guess is that your "deck" room is not really a deck and is being treated like an interior room instead. I suppose you could also set up a light set that has all of the lights turned on but this seems like more trouble than it would be worth to me.
  5. You can delete the deck framing or just turn off the layer for it if you don't want to see it. The fact that it is showing up inside the living room might mean that your heights are not correct though.
  6. The plan just needs to set to "allow editing in Home Designer" in the general plan defaults and saved. It's important that it is done in X13 though because if it is done in X14 you still won't be able to read it. Also, I hope you have HD Pro because if you have one of the other HD programs it still might not let you do what you want.
  7. The only thing I could think of is that you somehow messed up your dimension settings. I tried a number of different things though and couldn't get any results like you did. The other obvious thing to try is a reboot. Assuming these don't fix your problems, then you probably need to post your plan. I bet someone could figure it out pretty quickly without all of the guess work.
  8. Try these: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/#playlist-88 Also, if you click on the "help" button on the room structure panel, it will explain the controls a little bit better.
  9. When you converted the cad object into a polyline solid, the layer changed automatically. My bet is that your polyline solid layer is off in your plan view.
  10. 1. Why is this a partial list? Because chief coded it that way? My guess is that if you want more objects to report a type or subtype info in the schedule (and you don't want to do this manually), you will need to ask chief to do this. 2. Is there a way to open up the data in a Global way so hundreds could be updated simultaneously? I'm sorry but I am not sure what you are asking for here. If you have similar objects, you can group select them and open up the spec dialog to make changes to all of them at once (but I assume you already know this). You can also open all of the objects that are in a row in a schedule which might be handy for changing schedule related stuff. As far as I know, there is no way to make "global" changes to all objects. The match properties tool might help, but again, not really understanding what you are trying to change for what objects means that this might not help.
  11. Oh yeah, cut/paste is even easier than delete/place. You can even use paste hold position. I forgot about that one.
  12. But having a wall cabinet with a backsplash isn't? I'll have to check with my cabinet supplier and see if I can order them this way. One of the things l really like about the manual backsplash tool is how you can just click on a wall in an elevation/camera view and it auto fills around the cabinets and windows. If you are lucky, you might not even have to do any editing to the shape.
  13. It looks like schedules will sort automatically based on the first column (that is not the number). You can also use the label column instead of the description. The trick is that if you add/modify/remove any cabinets, it probably won't resort. I found the easiest way to solve this was to just delete it and drop in a new one. If you have customized it, you can use the set as default first. Of course being able to sort by any column by just clicking on it would also be handy.
  14. According to the migration guide: Personally, I won't miss it. I prefer using the custom backsplash tool instead. I suppose you could take a wall cabinet from X13 with it already turned on, save it in the library, and then use it. Seems like a pain though.
  15. I think mick is right. If the door is on the floor you should not get a base molding. Look at the height off floor. If you want the door off the floor but still don't want a base molding there, drop the door to the floor and then convert the room molding into a molding polyline. Then you can raise the door back up and not get the base molding. Of course once you create a molding polyline it won't update when you make any changes.
  16. Why not? Does trying to do a save as give you the same error or is it something else? Did you open up an auto save or backup file? Did you open a file up that is in some kind of special folder? One thing you might want to do is try is going into your file system and checking the properties of the file to make sure it is not set to read only. I know how to do this on windows and I assume apple has something similar but I don't know much about that. Also, you might want to try a reboot.
  17. Moving or even deleting the user library should have no effect on any plans. There are a couple of gotchas though. If you have created any custom library buttons linked to user library objects, these could get unlinked. It's pretty easy to relink them but if you have a lot this could be a pain. If your user library has lots of custom materials, you have to also worry about the referenced texture files (and maps if you use them). The material gets saved in the plan but the referenced files don't. This means that if you are going to put your custom materials on the cloud/network, you will also need to worry about how to manage these referenced files. I don't have any advice on the best way to do this since this is not something I have tried to do. According to the article, the program will migrate these referenced files with the user library but this might only happen if they are being stored in the chief folders. Good luck.
  18. For those that like to read (or have problems sleeping at night): Reference Manual - Chief Architect X14
  19. Until then, you could see if this article helps: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-03049/troubleshooting-chief-architect-software-closing-unexpectedly-on-windows.html
  20. While I agree with Michael's suggestion that it would be better to rotate the layout view instead of the plan, I can't figure out how rotating a label in plan view has any affect on the label in an elevation view. The label position and orientation in an elevation view are independent from plan view. The only thing I can think of that might affect this is the "rotate with plan" setting in the text style. A picture or plan might help.
  21. Did you read the support article? You probably don't need to turn off all of those settings. In the support article, they only recommend turning off those settings if nothing else works and then turning them back on one at a time to see which setting solved your problems. You have a good card and it should be able to run chief without turning everything off. My guess is that your problem is that you are not using the right drivers. If you can't figure it out, then you should probably contact tech support for more help.
  22. I have not done it myself but it looks like you can change the location of the folder in your preferences. Have a look at this tech article: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-03090/moving-library-content-to-the-cloud-or-other-custom-location.html
  23. See if turning on/off the "rooms" layer does what you want. If not, then you might want to create room polylines, add the fill styles you want, and then you can put these on your own layers to turn on/off. One advantage of using room polylines is that you can then edit the shape to fill in doorways and room fills won't do this. The disadvantage is that they won't auto update if you move a wall.