Alaskan_Son

Thanks Jared, I appreciate you taking the time to try and help us out, but your example is not quite the same. Try creating a much shorter energy heel or try using larger top and bottom chords. Energy heels work just fine down to a certain point. Where that point occurs I'm not exactly certain but once the combined height of the top and bottom chord reach a certain percentage of the heel height, the energy heel will no longer generate. Try getting an 11-1/4" heel with 2x6 top and bottom chords.

If I understand correctly what you're after then don't use the %page% macro. Chief has a built in method for dealing with this... Use the %layout.label% macro instead of or in conjunction with the %page% macro Click on Edit Page Information and in the Label field add your desired prefix followed by the # sign The # sign will automatically create a new series of page numbers based on the prefix For example, you could enter the following in the respective label fields: Page 1: CS Page 2: A# Page 3: A# Page 4: A# Page 5: S# Page 6: S# Page 7: P# The actual displayed label output from the %layout.label% macro would be as follows: Page 1: CS Page 2: A1 Page 3: A2 Page 4: A3 Page 5: S1 Page 6: S2 Page 7: P1 Let me know if that doesn't do what you're after. There are a few other tricks we can use as well.

Absolutely yes and positively no. It depends...can you be a little more specific about what you're trying to do.

As always you are very welcome. P.S. I just realized that your signature says X3-X8. You're not still using X8 are you? I assume you're not and that your signature just needs to be updated.

Sorry, I can't find any way to change that setting.

Are you talking about File>Export>Export Picture? Are you just trying to avoid manually entering your resolution in that dbx?

As many of you already know, energy heels do not automatically generate properly for some of the most standard truss configurations. Here's something I would definitely consider a workaround but its a lot quicker than what I think most of us have been doing... Build all your trusses as usual setting the appropriate trusses to be Energy Heels... Group select at least all the energy heel trusses, change top and bottom chords to a very small dimension (1" should probably do it), check Force Truss Rebuild, and click Okay... With the trusses still selected, open them right back up, check Lock Truss Envelope, change your top and bottom chord back to what they should be, and click Okay... Again, it would be nice if energy heels behaved properly on their own, but until they do, I think this is the best we can do. If anyone knows of a more effective solution I'd love to know it.

You just missed those 2 walls is all. For the record, you don't actually have to remove the sill either. Simply changing the structure settings should be all you need.

Yup. Better/true instancing abilities. Something some of us have been requesting. Hopefully we'll get it sooner than later.

If its a simple enough object you can also use a slab, a countertop, and/or a framing member and then you can make a CAD Block out of the object. Doing this will allow you to replace all instances of that block with the modified version. The 2 biggest problems we currently have with this method is that we have little to no control over the point around which the other instances are resized, and after modifying the CAD block you have to group select the others and manually change the size factors back to 1.00 and 1.00. I think its still a method worth looking into for some situations though.

Not sure how you're actually building this structure, but I'm guessing what you probably need to do is this... Change all your exterior walls to those settings and I think you should be good to go. I imagine that's how you will actually be building too but of course that's just a guess.

A couple notes that I'd like to add here… First of all, I appreciate the credit being thrown my way but it certainly wasn't all me. I think I've developed a few original ideas over the years and there have also been some ideas I thought were pretty groundbreaking where I ended up discovering some random threads from several years back where someone had already gone over the idea. Then there are ideas like this one that were a little of both. I think it was Joe who originally came up with the plant schedule idea and then like so many other ideas, one of us either rediscovered it or otherwise picked up on it and modified it or improved/expanded upon it. Anyway, I just wanted to give credit where credit was due. At least Joe and Perry were using the note schedule idea before I ever started using it. Secondly, please don't misunderstand me. I think the workaround is a little bit clunky myself and that we could badly use something much better. I just feel like it's the best alternative we currently have.

Here's a very quick example... Example.plan Example.layout NOTE: The callouts on the right could be further automated using macros but that would take a bit more work. I just wanted to show roughly how the idea would work.

That's a tough one. Without being more intimately involved with your drawing process I wouldn't be able to tell you for certain and even if this does work it would likely require some custom macros and a notable amount of set up time, but here's what I'm thinking MIGHT work and I'm pretty sure you're already aware of MOST of this... Use a 3D object and its corresponding schedule to create the notes. Assign a custom 2D block to that symbol and then use the 2D Symbol column in your schedule. This 2D block can be the callout for your first column. So far, these are all things I've gone over elsewhere before. Enter a new idea based on your query... Instead of creating a 2D block with a single callout, create a "multi-layer" 2D block with several callouts. Place each of those callouts on a different layer and set both the line style and text style to be controlled by layer. Doing this will allow you to display a different callout depending on your layer set. The callouts you do not want to display will get a text style with a text height of zero and the layer for that particular callout will get the invisible line style. It will take a minute to set up the layers and layer sets but once you do...switch the layer set and your callout changes. Send multiple iterations of your schedule to layout and line them up side by side. In your example, the far right columns would be 2 more schedules coming from different layer sets. The layout box would just be resized so that only the callout portion of the schedule is visible. NOTE: It may be helpful to look into adding a second (and maybe third, or fourth...) 2D Symbol column to the end of your schedule in order to help with the size difference of your columns. The additional column(s) can be sized differently than the 1st in order to help deal with the difference in callout size. I think if you decide to give my suggestion a college try that you'll probably see what I'm talking about. Anyway, this method would certainly not be super easy to set up, but if you can get it to work, you could likely re-use it over and over again after that with very little future futzing.

This problem really needs to be addressed. The angular dimensions get their settings from whatever Dimension Default is currently active and I think this behavior is silly. In order to stop it you have to do 2 things... 1. Select your dimension and delete the (D) from the number height field. Either that or manually enter a new value. 2. Change the arrow size to essentially uncheck Default. This one is a bit trickier. Simply unchecking default does not work and if you manually enter a dimension that is too close to the arrow size in the currently active dimension default, that won't work either...the values will revert to the default setting with any changes to the dimension default What I've found to be the best and easiest solution is this...switch to a different dimension default and manually change the arrow height to the size you want to use. Actually, its probably quickest and easiest to just switch to the the different dimension default and change both the number height and the arrow height at the same time. What's really irritating is that these things can only be done after placing the dimension. This is a real pain in the patootie and shouldn't be necessary.

Yeah, I considered that option but it wouldn't look or work quite right with this particular project...

I have a very similar situation on an addition project I'm working on right now. One thing I would take into consideration is how much water runoff you get in your area. My original design which is very similar to what you've shown in your OP... I wasn't exceedingly fond of the way it looks and it was going to take a fair amount of extra work so I modified it a bit per Eric's suggestion (a very good one by the way)... One problem though is that we could get a lot of snow, ice, and water doing damage to that bottleneck area. I'm currently a little torn. Thanks Eric. I'm putting that all on you : )

Nice Eric. I didn't feel like thinking about it that much or like working that hard. I might as well delete mine now...yours seems like it's probably much better : )

Hey Mark, Here's a custom macro that should do what you're after. Its just a really simple one that will only work properly if you're using a standard x = 1'-0" scale, but I'm guessing that's all you probably need this for. It could be modified as necessary for other more complex scales for an additional fee but this one is on the house... Mark's box scale.json Just download the .JSON file, import into your layout file using Text Macro Management, and then place the %Mark's box scale% macro into your layout box label and you should be good to go. Maybe just consider pasting paypal.me/alaskansons into your web browser and sending a small donation my way if it seems valuable enough to you. Its all good either way though. Hopefully it helps you out : ) P.S. For the uppercase letters all you have to do is change the text style for your "Layout Box Labels" layer to uppercase... ...easy as that.

Of course you don't NEED to. I just personally think it makes the job a little easier is all. Doing it that way all I need to do is .split("x") and I have an array with both pieces of the puzzle in easily usable decimal values that can be converted to floats and subsequently converted to the appropriate imperial and metric values. That's just the method I would use though.

Definitely doable and Joe's price sounds more than fair for a custom macro like this. If his doesn't work for you, shoot me an email at alaskansons@gmail.com and I'll see what I can do for you but I think he should be able to take care of you. Joe, I'm not sure if you've realized this or not, but you can change the dimension format in Chief's default room label settings to change to decimal values and to remove the unit indicators. This helps do the majority of the parsing for us. As many times as I've been in and out of that room label dbx, I've somehow never noticed that tab before now. And BTW, it seems to have zero affect on anything except for the room dimensions.

Probably lots of ways to do this but here's one more. You can simply use multiple single layer walls and reshape each one as desired...

These are very good tips. I think that overlapped views are a widely underused technique with a lot of uses.

You're welcome. Just wanted to make sure and clarify though… I would typically recommend dimensioning to an actual 3-D object whenever possible. The method I spelled out above is more of a stopgap solution for those situations where there is no real usable snap point... which is often the case in elevation views.

Sections have always been super limited with regard to snaps. There are only a handful of things other than section lines (the automatically produced CAD lines that are produced where the camera cuts through an object) that you can really snap to. Depending on what exactly you're needing to dimension, I think its often faster and easier to just... Create a CAD Detail From View Dimension what you need to in that CAD detail With the dimension tool still activated, shift select all your dimensions and cut/paste hold position those dimensions back into your elevation view Change to the point marker tool, shift select all the points, and then... Either change the marker radius to zero, change the line style to the invisible line style, or put them on their own unique layer and then just turn that layer off. The last option is what I feel is probably the best. This way you can always toggle that layer back on to proof check things at any time.