madcowscarnival

Thank you Glenn. I was unaware of that feature/location, it did have an archive from several hours after my apparent save.

Hey all, my computer was acting a little strange Friday (not specifically in chief). I worked on a file, got the layout to where I wanted, saved, released the license and closed. This evening, I attempted to open and it is a pretty old version of the file I was working on. Not a ton of work but a couple hours at least. Is there autosave data located somewhere that would be writing a duplicate file similar to how autocad works? As an FYI, when I remoted into the computer tonight, reactivated license and opened the file it still was only the early on work. But, it wouldn't let me view 3-D, gave the serious error message. I'll restart that computer in the morning, but hoping I might be able to recover the file from a different location. I do have a server that backs up, but its a nightly thing, so would not have anything more than what my computer thinks it has.

I'm barely adequate at roofs, but do like to practice as I'm in the same boat as you (trying to really work on setting up auto roofs well). Do you want to post the specific plan your working on? It's hard for me to tell if the near-side wall has a lower plate line than the far-side. I'll give setting it up a shot.

I see, thanks Michael. I also now see how to call the pan command after initiating a wall command with the "way" I've been drawing walls. Thank you all, helpful as always and highly appreciated.

Glenn, I'm curious about your setup. If you would indulge a rudimentary question, how do you go about mapping that command to the "PA" shortcut? Is PA pressing "P" then "A" while in command? That would be most convenient for me.

Thank you solver. As a runner up question, what is that action called? Or how could it be looked up in the index?

I really don't know how to frame this question or surely the search function would have worked. I often have to trace imported CAD lines with, say a wall command. I zoom in to accurately start my line, then while dragging the wall, I can zoom in and out with the scroll wheel. However, how do I pan when in this situation? I can zoom out, then move the position of my mouse pointer to start zooming back in to where I want to place the end point of the wall, but this is cumbersome (scroll wheel). If I use the button function of the scroll wheel it just cancels the command rather than pausing and allowing me to pan around the screen. Is there some button or combination that would allow me to pan around the drawing with an active command? I've tried what I thought might be common ones, but am not having any luck guessing or searching.

This an old topic now, but I'll add my two cents. I used to use OneDrive for all my file usage primarily because you log in once and it becomes a native mapped drive on your computer rather than having to sync working files. I have since switched to a physically located server that I VPN into remotely (a Dell SonicWall router). You might need some help to set up (and the infrastructure is more pricey) but it provides a couple of extras. 1) you know where the physical drive is, if you have an office environment its quicker to use than a cloud drive; 2) a VPN, especially if you travel and use available free wifi, gives you a completely secure connection back to your "home" network and whatever security you use there. This is safer also for browsing or whatever else you may do over an open network; 3) Very easy to set up a physical backup and cloud backup on that drive.

Robert, for some reason, my "linked saved plan view" is working plan view and was not letting me access the reference display. Turning the reference display on or off did not reflect in the layout. With Dermot's post, I changed the linked saved plan view to none and it allows control of the "show reference floor". I do not fully understand the process, however it is corrected. Thanks folks. This file was created by the builder who is new to the program, there are a number of not-default-behaviors that he has set up or modified that are different from how I use the program in factory default state.

No search is returning results. In my layout file, the reference displays are showing; though no longer turned on in the plan file. So I double-click the layout box, it activates my plan file and now reference layers are turned back on. Click them off and go back to the layout tab and they are still displayed. Is there a way to turn off reference layers from the layout without deleting the layout box and resending from the .plan file?

I wasn't able to check the original layout files, but I did open the PDF that rlackalore posted. Just an FYI, my (admittedly old) printer took the border line and some of the text in lower right and title block for page margins. Oddly this happened even printing on a larger sheet, like it needed some minimal margins for the print size regardless of sheet size.

OP, I would focus on being an excellent designer instead of pursuing a professional degree unless you are a recent HS grad and are seeking a degree in College. I work with several designers who can draw a set of plans better than most Architects, they just work with a professional Engineer on structural analysis and certification. I also know several professional architects who DO stamp their own plans, and in one municipality in particular STILL need to have structural review and certification. At a bare minimum, if you start an accredited school Fall semester, you're 8 years from a professional license. Those designers above? They command their salaries, which are approximate for professional salaries in this area, because they are darn good.

I'd recommend a call to them as well, in my experience they are good to speak with as everyone wants to be on the same page before a plan is finished and submitted. Check how/what they measure setbacks to. We have a nearby municipality that counts the fascia line for building setbacks. Another one (less than 30 min away) counts foundation footprint (though likely cantilever framing line too). That could make a big difference on a small lot like that.

I'd recommend an old-school HDD array in raid1. However, I also always start with new hardware (and 250GB is fairly small). I also backup this raid to an offsite usb SDD using windows "SyncToy" which does a remarkably good job for built-in windows tool. I'm not worried about high-speed connections between the drives. My setup that I'm very pleased with (lots of redundancy): work PC -> file server* (w/ mirrored array) -> home PC -> usb HDD (redundant backup) I've previously used OneDrive as well, but prefer the server. * - this is just a regular tower with a pretty basic board running Windows Server OS (very robust) connected to the LAN. Minimal performance specs. It runs continuously except for a few extended power outages (~1 hr) when I learned my UPS battery was bad). As its a separate machine, my workPC doesn't see any decrease in performance. I maybe have $1000 into all of this excluding the work PC (~6 years ago).

geez Solver, that's impressive. Thanks for helping those of us out that don't have such a complete grasp on this program as you and the other major contributors on here.

I should have looked a little further down my file. Here's one in .PLAN format. PLINE TEXT - HOLLOW.plan

Here's a DWG file of outlined text I'd made in ACAD a number of years back if you'd like. It's just a single font, but they're all plines without going through manipulation of sketchup objects HOLLOW TEXT PLINES.dwg

OP, if you still look at this thread, the second computer in my signature is my "home office" computer. It runs x11 just fine. File loads and saves over the cloud take some time, but work within the program is just fine. You would be hard pressed to find a laptop less than 10 years old with specs that couldn't run circles around that machine. Also, as I always do in these threads, I recommend Microsoft One-Drive. It is mappable to your local machine. You can work right off it with no additional download or sync steps. I used it before I moved to a VPN into my office server (also a mapped drive).

I will post plan when I'm finished up if needed. I created using a previous file, a lazy and incorrect way to get the various sets I wanted. I've finished annotating and was moving some notes around. However, the notes are no longer associated with their leader. I move the text and the arrow stays where it was rather than moving with the text. Have I inadvertently turned off a setting or have I corrupted behavior by using an existing file. It seems that this mostly affects text/leaders after I had edited default settings (going Chief font to Arial). Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thank you kMoquin.

If anyone else pops on here, is anyone aware of any potential legal liability of separating the models in sketchup and uploading individually? The free version of sketchup (I'm a very novice user) does not appear to permit saving to local files, only within the web-based program or in 3-D warehouse. I gave credit and described the original model, it just seems to be the only way to get the items I want on to my local machine.

Thanks for the reply. That's unfortunately what I suspected.

I found a 3-D warehouse model that has several things that would be helpful for a layout I'm working on. Its called "bakery shop set" https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/de34180f-37b7-4cb5-a0dc-1e3a73a3a09b/Bakery-Shop-Set It seems like it is designed to pull out the various items for use. However, in Chief it is blocked together with no apparent command to explode or unblock. Is this possible in Chief or do I need to do that in Sketch up then save individual items? That may be the best direction as the model is very large and definitely slows down the initial camera load-in.

Dermot, thanks for the tip. Nice insight into the inner workings.

living area.plan