Alaskan_Son

Ya, I totally get it. Just not too common in my experience. There are other ways to show old vs. new too. Did you try the pony wall method I mentioned to see if that might work for you? I’m kinda curious if it has any other downsides in an average practical application (assumes of course you don’t need to set the wall as a pony wall for other reasons but that would typically be pretty rare for a mono slab in my experience).

Honestly never had to do this before (thus the reason for the reason for the somewhat uncertain nature of some of my responses) and my memory may be failing me, but I don’t actually recall having seen it in anyone else’s plans before either. I think Chief just set it up so that it works for the vast majority of users since typically a person wouldn’t want to see if fill. I wouldn’t be opposed to something like a Show Wall Fill In This View toggle though.

Yet another advantage that wasn’t mentioned and that remains in the shadows and largely forgotten it unknown is the ability to display pony walls differently in different Plan Views. This in and of itself is reason enough to use Plan Views for many plans IMO.

Was just chillin' here and it occurred to me that in addition to these and Glenn's extra idea there's also one more option that doesn't actually seem to have any downsides to speak of. At least none that I can think of off the top... Leave the desired walls as slab footings, leave the room as a Mono slab, but change the wall to a Pony Wall. Set the upper wall to be a copy of the Lower wall, but change the material to a copy of the Concrete material with a non-concrete material definition. Chief needs a concrete material to define the mono slab properly but it only hides walls that are defined as concrete...

I just stopped back into the office for a moment and it looks like there's essentially only 2 ways to force those walls to display as solid if you're using them to define a monolithic slab and they both come at a cost... 1. Uncheck Foundation Wall. This would require that none of the walls defining your mono slab area be set to a Foundation Wall though, and they would all get their footing definition from the Default Slab Footing Wall definition. 2. You change the room definition to remove the Monolithic Slab designation. You would lose your beveled footing shape though. and would have to join your auto fills in section views to get one solid slab/footing (you could add the beveled shape when you do this though.) There may be other ways and there may be other downsides to those 2 methods, but I think that's about it. P.S. You could also just add the fills with CAD.

Yes. It’s because you’re working with a monolithic slab and are using the Slab Footing tool. That’s how it works. Away from my computer now, but it feels like there’s a way to force what you want. I don’t recall for sure, but when the walls close up to form the slab, did they change to invisible walls? If so, try changing them back to visible and see what that does. Either that or maybe play with the settings on the foundation tab. I think for example that changing from a Monolithic Slab will also fix your problem but you’ll lose the angled footing edge.

In my opinion, deleting your attic walls and turning this setting off is a poor solution. It’s going to just cause other problems. Sure, you might be able to place the dormers, but then you’ll most likely have to replace the necessary attic walls and figure out how to tie those in with your dormers without breaking the dormers again. When you mentioned 2 dormers in your OP, I figured you must have known you had 2 in the plan. As Mick said, the layer is turned off. And just FYI, you don’t check IN layers. If anything, you check in IN Layer SETS. You turn Layers on and off in those Layer Sets. I already did that. I just didn’t post the plan. Did you read the Help files on Dormers? And did you check anywhere except the first tab in the Dormer Specification dialog? I’m away from my computer now, but it’s on the Walls tab I believe. Don’t mean to come across as rude, but if my posts sound short, it’s because the nature/wording of your question coupled with how long you’ve been active here kinda makes it feel like we are doing your homework for you. Dormers are tricky and unless you take the time to learn them properly you will struggle with them on every project that you want to use them on. Anyway, like I said, you can either change the height (by opening the dormer and modifying the height) and reposition the dormer. That or you could do it manually. Turning off Auto Rebuild Attic Walls at your current skill/knowledge level though is an extremely short sighted solution at best. It will likely solve your problem right up until you open a 3D Overview 2 minutes later.

No. But if you read up on the tools and adhere to the rules and recommendations Chief supplies then you can make them work. For example, don't make them so tall...

Then you're out of luck. That's just not how those tools work.

Not really. The only problem I can think of would be with things in your schedule or material list that reference a floor number. If you want those to reference the logical/true first and second floors than you would have to address that using the Object Information Fields, customized schedules, etc. Very minor detail IMO. No. You could use the other option of simply starting with a blank foundation plan though if you wanted to go that route.

Exellent points Glenn. Thanks for highlighting some of the additional benefits of the extra capabilities. These can actually be major time savers are very large/complex projects too.

Sorry I tried to help then I guess. I'll try to remember in the future and just pass on by. For anyone else though that thinks it doesn't work, it does work. It just works differently than you might expect and in a less efficient manner for certain operations. You just have to know what's happening. I suggested way back in X10 that Chief should change the way that Default checkbox is set up because it can be very confusing. As it is right now, the ONLY way to get a Header Label to disconnect from the Header Label Defaults is to manually uncheck that Default checkbox after the window or door has been placed in the plan. In the example Perry posed above, this would be right when you're done drawing the As-Built and just before you move on to the New (or Proposed). This can be as simple as group selecting all the windows and doors and unchecking the box, but this step really shouldn't be necessary. That being said, the way Header Labels work actually also carries with it some pretty cool capabilities that other labels don't. That is, it provides for a dynamic custom labels that can affect any/all previously placed objects whereas other objects' labels only affect future objects. It would really be great if we had this capability for ALL labels. There just needs to be a way to set this behavior up at the Default level though.

Honestly, that's totally fine. If you don't want/need to take advantage of the new capabilities then don't, but what started this conversation was the idea of "going back", which is utter silliness IMO. There have been no logical reasons given to go back. Only reason I can even think of is a person not learning to use the tools correctly and just getting frustrated...for example, making themselves set up a unique Plan View up for every single floor--something that is entirely unnecessary.

You had your workflow down pat when you were working on a drafting table with pencils, erasers, protractors, compasses, squares and rulers though too I bet .

I could sort of agree with this statement up to a certain point. The truth is though that there were things people could never do with Annotation Sets before so they made them work. And there were a handful of things that you actually had to use the Layout Box for that the Annotation Set couldn't provide (Floor, Zoom, Reference Display, etc.). You might know all this, but for anyone that doesn't, take a quick look at this graphic. Note what the Annotation Set remembers in blue and all that the Saved Plan Views remember in red with notes for the added functionality. Do you really think its accurate to say Saved Plan Views are the redundant feature?

This would only be true if you were unnecessarily creating a different Layer Set for each and every Plan View.

A couple ways you could go about this... As Mike pointed out above (albeit with some extra details), you can simply open a blank blank, Build Foundation>Make new blank plan...and then start drawing your foundation before even placing a single wall on Floor 1. You could simply draw your Foundation on Floor 1, your first floor on Floor 2, etc. There are oftentimes other good reasons to do this anyway.

It should only be working this way if you are changing it in your Door and Window Defaults. You have to uncheck "Default" at that location to even enter a new default label, BUT your individual door and windows also have a default checkbox. Maybe try reading this again... I'm not talking about group selecting your default settings. I'm talking about group selecting your actual doors and windows...

Try this...

According to your filter settings, you’ve chosen to hide all your catalogs. Unhide them.

If you don't have the default checked then where do you "change the header label to (n) for new windows and doors"?

Depending on what you need, whether or not you're making heavy use of the material list and/or fixture schedules, and how adept you are at the tools, you can also create a single custom symbol that includes both sinks. here's a quick example that has both sinks in a single cabinet without having to create a block... Base Cabinet w Sink Pair.calibz

Seems like a person would be hard pressed to give a logical reason for "going back". Not setting them up in the first place is one thing, or not fully understanding how they work or how to set them up maybe, but going back just sounds bonkers to me. For all intents and purposes Saved Plan Views are no more difficult to set them than a group of Active Defaults (Annotation Sets) are but they carry with them a lot more benefits.

Before you start drawing your new plan, group select all your windows/doors and on the Framing tab right next to the Header Label, uncheck Default. With Default checked, it will continue to use whatever you assign to the Default label. Either that or (depending on the situation) check Retain Wall Framing for the appropriate walls. I might even do both in many circumstances.