TeaTime

^ This But also to answer your question, you can't slope walls in Chief Architect. For an A-Frame structure, just build your "walls" with Roof Planes since they're one in the same with that type of structure anyway.

I'm guessing it'd take one of the Chief software engineers to figure exactly whats happening under the hood, you're probably just hitting some weird threshold that Auto Dormer doesn't like. Auto Dormers are handy but they can be a pain, especially when trying to make them fill the full span like that. I'd use the Explode Dormer tool and adjust it manually - though, for those types of dormers I usually just do them all manually from the start.

Here's the Chief video that shows that in action: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/videos/watch/1956/flared-roof.html?playlist=95 Haven't watched the video in a while but I think that's the same process? I'd also like to point out that in OP's example photo, that's not a curved roof, just a lower roof plane, and that can be done on a wall-by-wall basis using the Auto roof tools by setting Upper Pitch/Lower Pitch settings on the bearing wall, just be sure the "In From Baseline" is at least 1", 0" doesn't work. So if you're looking for a very simple bell, and not a fancy curved one, try this:

Oh, if I'm not mistaken this is an issue with older versions that was fixed some versions back. it's specifically Room Labels and their "Area" labels. If you hide the "Rooms, Interior Dimensions" layer you'll at least be able to read your room names...

Cue the sound of the Beta testers reading their NDAs...

Certainly should be, "Find in Plan" should take you back to the plan with the object(s) selected - it may seem like nothing is selected because, well everything is selected. One way to test this is to open a room, go to moldings, uncheck Use Default and delete it, then remake a Mat List. The length should drop and Find In Plan should highlight all but that room. This is a kind of tough one to manually verify in HD but it's simply tracing the perimeter of each room (that has Default Casing). That's specifically all door/window casing. If it makes you feel any better, I've never seen the MatList get anything blatantly wrong, if anything there are some rounding flukes here n there, but it's just measuring all the things it sees in the plan.

Oh, sorry I meant like in release notes, etc. Thanks though! I'll bet it's come up a few times over the years. Hope it gets heard though, it's a small thing but I often tab too fast and have to start over.

This is my preferred method as well - .plan and .layout should never change, least you derive some strange pleasure in re-linking plan/layouts when they invariably break.

PS: Box Construction must be Framed to access Stile values.

I don't recall ever seeing anything about this, so I'm gonna guess the answer is "No", but it would be a handy addition!

I would think this would have to be a material with transparency - kinda like the "screen" material *Edit: Yeah, that! ^

Yup, exactly what I did to verify my hypothesis - I am curious if you nudged your cameras after they were created, because all of mine were all parallel at that default 120° angle. It makes sense that it should ignore 0,0 since there's no huge push for plans to be drawn based on the plans origin -- if you draw off-origin, that shouldn't affect how you view your model.

Oh and if you want to get pedantic, the displayed x/y in the status bar locks when a dialog is open, so if he used the Edit Active View button to open that dbx, that coord is actually probably somewhere near the top/left of his view

Oh gotcha. That's just based on the model. There's some fancy math to determine the center and the overall size of the model, then the camera gets placed, facing the model at 120°, at an "appropriate distance" as to view the whole model. So it's totally dependent on how big your model is, where the model was drawn (around 0,0? A few miles off?), etc.

That is absolutely correct. Use Input Point to place a point at 0,0, then create a Camera snapping to that point

The harm would be in NEVER updating, unless you never update Chief, I suppose. Or any other program that may need instructions from your graphic drivers, for that matter. Because changes to the software may require newer instructions from the drivers, it's generally a good idea that whenever the software is updated, your drivers are as well. This is why most techies/gamers just recommend to update drivers as often as possible (maybe staying 1 version back), just to make sure all your various programs will continue to work along with wildly varying update schedules.

After nearly a decade using this software, I find that feeling never totally goes away

If you're looking for a Gable/Hip/Gable type scenario, the patio (invisible) wall need to be pulled back slightly so that it lines up with the main layer of the brick garage wall then, if the two gable walls are marked as Gable (under the wall spec Roof panel), when you Build Roof, the roof should build over that space normally. Though I see that Auto Roofs is not on, and other roofs change when telling chief to Build Roof, so there may be some tweaking needed after the fact.

Welcome! Searching the main Chief site for "sunroom" you'll find there's an article that gives some pretty good tips for this type of design. https://www.chiefarchitect.com/search/?default_tab=all&q=sunroom You'll notice too the search results give articles, videos, chief talk threads... it's a great place to start with most any how-to questions. Also, if you haven't yet, try to get in the habit of pressing F1 -- or the ? icon in the toolbar -- the program's built-in Help is SUPER handy.

@BrentJohnJohnit'll help to know what kind of roof -- are you trying to make a simple shed? gable? What's the plan? Both I'd just do manually but the approach will be slightly different.

Sounds like the CAD Block needs to be exploded first. Here's my method: Place the sink into a blank plan, it'll yell that it's supposed to be placed in a cabinet, accept it and place it as a standalone object. Go to CAD, CAD Block Management, find the symbol - it'll be the only one with a red +, select and press the "Insert" button. Click to place the CAD block somewhere, then select it. In the Edit Toolbar at the bottom press "Explode Block" - now you can select the outermost edge polyline. In the Edit Toolbar again, press Convert Polyline. In the dialog, choose Countertop and press OK. Specification will open automatically. Check "Hole in Countertop" and press OK. Reselect all the CAD, press Make CAD Block in the Edit Toolbar, hit Open and give it a good name. In the Library, right-click the sink and choose Open Symbol. On the 2D Block tab, select the new block name you just made and press OK. Now it should place into a countertop with a hole the exact shape of the sink.

I have seen this before, I've been told essentially "it just happens sometimes, its ok to ignore it." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Out of curiosity, what does it look like while on the Layout if you toggle the Print Preview on? You might have some aberrant line weight issue that you're only seeing because the Print Preview is showing the true line weights, etc., where the Layout view won't (by default).

Just a little FYI to expand on what Rob said, technically the program automatically saves materials within the Plan. Or, Material Data, might be more accurate. If you go to 3D> Materials> Plan Materials, you'll see every material that's been used in this particular plan, some will be used, some not. Literally every time you apply a material, the program takes the Library Material data and remaps it to Plan material data. What you're encountering is very common, because while the material data is stored within the plan, the supplemental material files are not -- by that I mean the Texture file and any material map files. Those are stored on the local computer and cannot be stored within the Plan. (well, I'm sure Chief could program it to do so, you can save other Images and PDFs within the plan, bit it would result in wildly huge .plan files). Backup Entire Plan is the most direct way around this, since it takes all those files and bundles them into a .zip file (or folder), as Rob showed. Though realistically you should be able to save all your custom material textures to your User Library folder (by default Documents\Chief Architect Premier X14 Data, but you don't want to sync that whole thing, you can re-map it's location in Preferences, General> Folders), and as long as Dropbox is syncing that location between your computers, it *should* in theory keep your custom libraries in sync. There's some potential hazards with that though, and every time I've talked to Support about it they recommend against it, so it's sort of an At Your Own Risk situation.

wait, so by "Render" do you mean Ray Trace?