Alaskan_Son

If I recall correctly, you just asked this question. You didn’t respond to the answer you were given though. Help us help you.

Show us a screenshot of the patterns in your Core Catalog in X11

For being so cooperative and thick skinned, I'm giving you a quick, functional, and re-usable example... Copy and paste the notes to additional locations and see how automated it can be. When done, simply select the schedule, copy it, and paste directly into Excel. Easy peasy rice and cheesy.

No. It wasn't you. I've just seen negative points showing up a lot when all people are doing is trying to ACTUALLY be helpful and I see examples all the time of exactly why providing pertinent information is so important. This example just kinda set me off today is all...it could have been anyone or any thread...sorry it was yours

In this case, the whole thing can actually be almost completely automated super easily (numbering and all) with even some built in macros. Not going to go over every step, but you can easily use notes, a note schedule, custom object fields, x_location attribute, y_location attribute and a quick copy paste to spreadsheet. WARNING: Explicative laced side rant to follow... I don’t know who you are, but it really really &$&:#+% pisses me off when people downvote @solver, @Signatures, and other invaluable users for suggesting people provide their information (and possibly post a plan). It’s this type of thankless and ignorant arrogance that drives a lot of us to stop sharing or at least share a lot less or with a much smaller group of users. Some of you guys out there obviously have no clue how much these little details matter, or how frustrating and utterly exhausting it gets having to repeat the same &*#% instruction over and over again because people are too lazy to invest a little effort themselves or because some less proficient and less helpful user thinks the details don’t matter. I promise you, the details matter. They really do. The last thing I want to do is spend 15-20 minutes of my valuable time explaining a method that won’t even work for the user. This is a prime example. The best solution we have in X11 was entirely impossible in X9, and even some of the old less effective solutions are entirely impossible in the highest level Home Designer product. In addition, we have even better solutions available in X12. If you think someone is going to sit down and walk you through every single one of them though you have another thing coming. Help us help you people. P.S. That wasn’t aimed at you Randy, although I would suggest you update your signature.

No. Not really. Every scenario is different. I just sent you a P.M.

We already have arrows in defaults. The thing I assume you're wanting is the ability to set arrow style to be controlled by layer settings somehow...i.e. change layer set and arrows change to suit. Is that correct?

That text is displayed based on Layer's Text Style. Change the Text Style to a special 0" tall text in any given layer set and you can essentially just turn the length and angle off in that layer set.

By the way, this can also be further automated in a number of other creative ways using various object types and schedules. Are you actually still in X9?

This can be done completely with some relatively complex custom text macros, could be sped up with some simpler text macro, or you can also just manually enter the points one at a time into a text file in any number of ways. The easiest is probably just to use the Temporary Point tool. Just place a point wherever you want it. Double click on it, and you will get the x and y locations that you can simply copy and paste. As Chop said, you can also get x and y locations using Terrain Elevation Points.

Yup. This is one of the most typical solutions in X11 and prior. Just reduce the text size being used for your dimension to at or near zero.

This has only recently become possible in X12. Are you running X12?

All you should need to do is use different Layer Sets.

If you want accuracy, I think you'll just need to find a door with the internal blinds, or model one from scratch. If you just want the general feel though, try playing with these settings...

I typically just use flash drives. You could probably pick up a flash drive of that same size for $30 or less and it would likely be more dependable and have much much faster data transfer speeds.

I know your decisions aren’t random. Wasn’t saying they are. Just saying that sometimes they seem a bit odd. You do a lot to try and keep people from making mistakes like this, and I can appreciate that to a certain extwnt. After you spell out your reasoning on this one for example, it doesn’t bother me quite as much.... ...Doesn’t really change the fact that some of these little inconsistencies really really confuse, bewilder, and frustrate a lot of users though. There’s probably no perfect solution, I get it. Just don’t like the decisions sometimes. P.S. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of these things, but there are other solutions as well. First, those controls could be toggled off by default like some of the other controls are, AND second, you could issue a warning after a person clicks on the tool.

Manually with primitives, by converting a wall to a symbol and using that, or by getting super tricky with roof/ceiling planes. I would just be using primitives. A lot of manual work no matter how you slice or dice it though. Not something Chief was really designed to do.

With the efforts you've invested in trying to clean up the program, consolidate some tools, and make things more consistent and easier to use, I'm really surprised to see you guys move in that direction. Unless I'm missing something, there are exactly 2 little buttons that are not available in Active Layer Display Options (ALDO) that are available in the normal Layer Display Options (LDO); Reset Layer Names and Delete Unused Layers. I for example, use ALDO with all options turned on and have it docked off to the side at all times so that I can easily make any and all of these types of changes on the fly. Aside from using LDO for purposes of keystroke macros, I would otherwise have no use for it at all. Honestly, the only reason I see to have 2 separate tools is so that we can customize the buttons that we want displayed in ALDO. It really seems like a silly limitation to disallow just those 2 buttons. It's little things like this that make some users want to rip their hair out when working with Chief. It works like this here, and it also works the same h.....Oh what the %&$#!! $%&*&^%$%$$@@%&*!!!! ^&%^$%$^ Chief %&^%$#!!!........ ....*$#@....there goes another keyboard.

Chief is really getting pretty close with the new Custom Schedule capabilities in X12. It's very easy to create a schedule that includes any room or group of rooms. Include only an Area Column, and Display Totals Row and you can easily get automated area totals for any and all groups and/or subgroups. We could of course use a completely new group of tools, but one more small step, and schedules would be a totally easy to use and viable replacement for many scenarios where we currently have to utilize relatively complex custom macro solutions...

Yes, this is one solution. Another solution would be to place a layout box that uses a layer set that does have that polyine turned on somewhere off to the side in that layout. It's funny, I had envisioned al sorts of possible scenarios as to why your macro wasn't executing till you opened the plan, but the scenario you described wasn't one of them. Really highlights exactly why all the little details are so important.

Completely depends on that macro, how it is written, whether or not it references any other global variables, whether or not those global variables are set by a macro included in that particular view, etc.

As others have already said, there are lots of ways to do this. It just depends on how accurate you need it to be and on exactly what your railing structure looks like. Another super quick and easy method in my opinion is to simply build the deck as you want it with Auto Regenerate toggled on. Once your DECK is correct, check Retain Framing, turn Auto Regenerate off, move the floor definition down the distance of your desired newel drop, and then move the walls out the distance of your desired offset.

We do that type of thing for non load bearing openings all the time, although I usually either do 1 flat 2x on the bottom with 2-2x4 on edge (1 each side of wall) or I just use 2-2x flat (stacked).

You need to make a COMPLETE Break.

I think Joe probably guessed correctly here. Sounds like you're creating a molding symbol. These symbol types were designed to apply to a molding line and not as freestanding objects. This is why you're seeing the repeating pattern. Chief is showing you what it's going to look like when applied as a molding. Next time you convert to symbol, just make it a fixture.