JKEdmo

Lane, Is it this?

You might be able to use a keyboard remapping tool outside of Chief. Windows 11 has it through Power Toys. I have not used it, but you might check it out.

I wasn't at all aware of this requirement. But, makes sense. Learned something today! Thanks, Jim

BTW, you can edit your signature in your account settings:

The last programming I did was a Fortran class at the local JC in (I think) 1985. It's been a while. In case you didn't know, there's a fun Ruby tutorial built in to the Chief Ruby console. Just hit the tutorial button. It happens within the console, so is a lot like interacting with a 1970s terminal hooked up to a mainframe. Anyways, I got up to chapter 15. Give it a try if you haven't yet.

Thanks. It worked!

Thanks. I'll take a look at this. Started reading a little in the manual about Ruby. A little hard to wrap my brain around! Jim

Thank you. Will do.

Good morning, I thought I'd get fancy (i.e. try to learn something new) and have my plan marker report back the room subfloor elevation instead of typing in manual text like I always do. Result: It reports back in inches. Anybody know how to get this to report back in feet + inches? You can point me to a forum thread or video if easier. Was not sure what key phrase to search for. Thanks in advance, Jim

It's a Windows thing: Find your Chief program icon. Right click it and got to "Properties." Make sure the box below is unchecked. Mine is from Windows 11. Windows 10 should be very similar.

You can't work with X17 files in older versions to best of my knowledge.

Take advantage of tech support. It's paid for and usually they are pretty responsive. Otherwise, you might try repairing the program installation:

Now that I think about it, I suspect what the OP was getting at is that the Chief tool can be fussy. You drag wall layers to where you want them and then others can suddenly spring back into their original position. That's my experience -- but I'll admit maybe I'm not using the tool correctly. The Autocad tool I mentioned is "sticky." The manual cleanups you make are permanent and truly override the automatic wall layer merging. Allows for better fine tuning.

I would agree. In fact, I've been pretty impressed at how responsive Chief has been to the forum and also the tech support issues I have sent in. They just released an update to X17 today. I took a look at the change log out of curiosity and it's clear they are hard at work. Jim

Autocad Architecture has wall cleanup overrides and works exactly like this. It is a very useful feature. I'm hopeful the Chief programmers can work their magic and add this option!

Update -- I submitted this to tech support and got the reply below. Appears to be a glitch that they are looking into. Jim - Support Answer - Roy R Wednesday, Jul 09, 2025 - 02:37 PM PDT Hello, Thanks for this additional information! It does appear to be the same issue as prior. Our development team is aware of this issue, so I have updated them with additional information. It appears the issue is related to changing the dimension text’s position to be above the line in the defaults, then making manual changes to the dimension. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused. If you have any further questions about this issue in the meantime, please let me know. Best Regards, Roy

Good morning, I'm trying to understand / correct this dimension behavior... I generated plan Auto Exterior Dimensions. The dimensions look good - with the wall width dimensions placed neatly to the side where they should be: But, when I grab and relocate the dimension line to where I want them, these wall width dimension locations get screwed up and I have to go through and manually reposition them: From what I can tell, it's only the dimension values that do not fit between the extensions and are originally shifted to the side. Any tips / techniques? Thanks once again, Jim P.S. Using X17 with plan originally begun in X16.

Try messing around with a distribution region. It can in fact be set so that the elevation references a roof plane. Here I drew the region across my roof in plan: I defined a skinny box to be distributed 18" o.c. This will act as the standing seam. Here's the part that makes the region match the roof plane: Here's the result below in 3D. Note that the 3D distribution region objects are the white "slats." (The dark grey standing seam is just standard material texture. I happened to be working on a SS roof at the time). First time I tried this, but I think the Distribution Region could be finessed to make this work. Jim P.S. Doing this in X17.

I sent in to Chief. They were very responsive with their reply. Looks like it does not work, but they are looking into a possible fix. Here's their reply FYI: Hi Jim, Thanks for reaching out! I am able to reproduce the problem and am not able to get the two windows to join in this scenario. I’ll log the problem with our developers to see if we can get the behavior updated or, failing that, the Documentation updated. I tried a couple of prior versions and have not seen it work fully so far so I’m not certain in which version it last worked. Jim

Robert, Thanks for testing this. I might just send this into tech support to see if Chief in fact allows this. Jim

Good morning, I'm trying to combine flat and angled top windows into a mitered corner window. Chief seems to say this is doable... ... but I'm having a heck of a time making it work. Any special tips / techniques for this would be greatly appreciated. Plan attached (X17). Thanks again, Jim CORNER WINDOW PROBLEM.zip

I had serious lag issues, which I solved by repairing the program installation. You might give it a go.

Select the schedule then hit the renumber schedule button.

Try using the custom muntin tool. You draw the muntins as linework, form a Cad block and then load it on to the window glazing.