ArthurDent

Please, for the love of everything that is good, don't force me to have to type in every dimension up front. Just because some other cad programs work that way doesn't make it the right way or even a good way. Most of the time, when I am designing, I don't need to draw anything accurately. I only care about the overall design and layout. I just draw free form and worry about the specific sizes and locations after the fact. This is why the Chief way works best for me. If I spent most of my time drawing as-builts, then I could see more of an advantage of getting things located exactly up front. I still don't think it's very hard to just draw the wall and then just click on the dimensions to locate them.

"Not to mention that lines are antialiased, which makes everything look crisp, clear and professional." I have never been bothered by this. Mostly because I never do screen shots of plan views so I don't care what the screen looks like. I either print them or send them to pdfs where the antialiasing is not needed as long as your print resolution is good.

I'm with Graeme, something is wrong on your end. Call tech support.

The cabinets in your plan will only update if the material is set to "use default". If the material is set to any other material, then that is what it stays.

I only partially agree with Ron (what happened to your smiling face Ron?). This is a beta and problems should be expected but if everyone avoids the problems by not downloading the beta, then they will probably still be there when it's released. Isn't that the whole point of a beta? I think the best thing to do is always make sure to report any problems you find so that they know about them. I haven't had any crashes using the beta yet so I am guessing that your problems are either from something wrong with your system (video card?) or something wrong with your plan. I have seen some of the slow downs though. Someone told me they are working on them but also told me that if I ran into any particular problem areas to report them to make sure they get fixed too.

You can make shelving units with open backs using cabinets. Just set the back to 'match front".

The short answer is "not easily". You can't really explode a symbol but there are a number of things you could do to make a new symbol using the original one. I would consider these more advanced techniques though. The real question though, is why would you need to use a symbol to make a cabinet with 2 or 3 shelves? This can be done very easily with the normal cabinet tools. No need to convert it to a symbol at all. You can save cabinets directly into the library without converting them into symbols which will allow you to reuse it. If you need to change it, you can just place it into a new plan and make changes (without having to explode anything).

On a side note, a line weight of 1 is probably going to be to thin for almost anything. In fact, I am a little surprised to see Joey's line weights so thin in his layers. Those look more like the line weights that Chief used to use back in the "old days". If you are using 1/100mm for your line weight scale I would have expected much thicker lines.

I am betting that what happened is that when you opened up your backup that you lost some of the work you did. I don't think you can trust the backup to have all of the last changes you made. It all depends on when the backup was made. I always check my plans carefully when using backups. I have never had a case where I opened up a normal plan and had stuff go missing. I have had cases where I had some weird stuff in a plan and doing an F12 or rebuild 3D made changes that I did not expect. I haven't seen this in a long while though. If you do have some kind of wackiness in your plan and F12 actually changes things, then it is possible that you might see those same changes when you reopen the plan.

It might be because you don't have 4 walls. If you place a door on a single unattached wall, Chief will treat it like an interior door. The program also treats the door glass differently for interior and exterior doors.

Chief won't do cut lists for cabinets. If you need that kind of detail, you will need a different program.

I sometimes create more then one set of dimensions for different purposes on different layers. For example, I may want one set of dimensions for my presentation floor plan and one for my working drawings. I can then turn them off and on as needed using the layer sets. It's pretty annoying when they all pop up though when ever you select a wall.

When you select the wall, Chief will show all dimensions even if they are turned off. X6 does the same thing. I'm surprised you haven't seen this before.

The dialog won't give you an arrow with a bend. I think the easiest way to do what you want is to use the new "same line type" tool. Or you could just a break to the arrow to create the bend. You can report bugs through the web site: https://support.chiefarchitect.com/

You could also use two stacked cabinets.

I get different results depending on which tool I use. I see the same problem as you when I use the text arrow line tool. The leader line tool seems to work fine for me. I noticed that the new "same line type" handle also works. I would call it a bug in the beta. Did you report it yet?

Why not use lites instead?

You can change the rendering technique in any camera view. You can also change the settings for most of the techniques. Just open up the render techniques options dialog and play with the settings. You should try them all to see which ones you like.

I don't find it that confusing. Layers control what displays and what it looks like. Annotation sets just control your defaults which mostly only affects new things. There is a bit of overlap but I think it helps to think of them in these simplistic terms.

Use the make room molding polyline tool to convert your auto room molding into a manual one. Way easier then drawing your own. Then turn off the molding for each edge that is against the stone.

You can use the open symbol button to make changes to the symbol. This tool lets you replace either the 2d or 3d. You can place the symbol in a plan and then go into a camera view to delete surfaces and then make a new symbol out of it. Sometimes I have even combined symbols and other objects to make new hybrid objects using this. Not sure if any of these will help but It's not clear what changes you want.

You can set your default label positions in the window defaults. I don't think this will affect any of the windows already in your plan though. To change all of your windows, marquee select them while in window mode, and change them all at one time. You will have to do that once for each floor.

Framing won't show in camera views when it's in a cad block. If you explode your block, it should show up.

It's also in the preferences (and I did not even realize it was in the menu).

I knew the answer because I've been bit by that one before.