Alaskan_Son

Mine aren't all empty. The Templates and Toolbars folders are both full. I went ahead and sent a ticket into tech support. My migration log shows one error... "....Premier X9 Data\Patterns Migrate From Directory does not exist. Copying Textures Directory Migrate From Directory: C:\Users\User\Documents\Chief Architect Premier X8 Data\Textures Migrate To Directrory: C:\Users\User\Documents\Chief Architect Premier X9 Data\Textures ***ERROR: Migrating TexturesDirectory Migrating Preferences Copying Chief Architect Premier X9.ini File Migrate From File: C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Chief Architect Inc\Chief Architect Premier X8.ini Migrate To File: C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Chief Architect Inc\Chief Architect Premier X9.ini..." I'm assuming the folders weren't deleted because there was that one error during migration. I noticed in another thread you mentioned you have missing textures. I suspect your migration log also has a similar error message and your migration folders were probably not deleted for the same reason as mine. That's just a guess though. I suppose I'll wait to hear what the fine folks at TS have to say.

Re: sheetSizes...Thank you. I wonder why it was present in both X7 and X8 folders? It must have just been carried over during the migration process? Oh well...as long as its not necessary. Re: mmaster...That's kinda what I figured. Just wasn't sure if perhaps something had gone wrong during the initial migration/install. I went back and double checked and it looks like Chief is still using one of the Master Lists located in my X8 folder. I've never really utilized Master Lists except for learning and playing around with them so its probably a non-issue but I went ahead and created a new one in my X9 folder for if and when I do make use of it. Thanks. Re: Migrate Folders...Thank you for verifying. That's kinda what I figured on those as well but I wasn't sure. I wonder if I'm safe to delete them. I take it you don't have them? I probably ought to contact TS to make sure its okay if I clean that folder up.

I noticed my Chief Architect Premier X9 Data folder is a little different than in previous versions. It seems to be missing these 2 files... ...and these files seem to be new... Not sure it really matters as I don't seem to be having any problems, but I would also kinda like to understand what's going on. Any of yuze guys happen to have any insight?

Ah yes. If we're considering applied materials too then we can also add: Wall material region Custom backsplash (they're almost the same but have some different useful behaviors that set them apart).

Just bear in mind there are at least 4 ways to change the material of your walls... 1. Through the wall type settings 2. Through the wall materials tab 3. Through the room materials tab 4. By using the material painter The latter 2 will allow for a situation where a single wall may have sections with different materials assigned and therefore the "no change".

Re-read my post above. The wall probably got hit with the material painter at some point.

Yes. Because one way or another the wall had more than one material assigned to it. I'm assuming the wall is probably spanning more than one room and you either changed one of the walls in that room using the material painter or you changed the material of the walls through the room dbx. Just a couple guesses.

No. I think the closest you can probably get to an export/import process would be: Do a Save As of Plan A (the one that has the desired Ray Trace settings) and delete everything in it. Import Layer Sets, Annotation Sets, and Default Settings from Plan B Open Plan B and use Edit Area (all floors) to draw a polyline around the entire plan. Cut and paste/hold position that Edit Area Polyline from Plan A into Plan B. You can of course also just take screenshots of your settings from Plan A nd re-enter them into Plan B but it would be nice if there was an actual export/import process.

I would say ALMOST always a video card issue. One other thing I've ran into myself that can cause the same problem... Setting the backdrop to solid black and then creating a "Line Drawing" with black lines. I've often set the backdrop to black to create realistic interior night time ray traces. A couple times when doing that I've tried to switching to the line drawing rendering mode and had the whole screen go black. It's was never readily apparent what the problem was though because my camera was either inside or looking at the building and one would assume you would be able to at least see the outline of the building (i.e. it didn't occur to me that the background color should be having any effect). What's unique about line drawings though is that the color of your object is simply set to be the same as the background color...something that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. I mean it's not a glass house view or wireframe drawing. Only visible surface and horizon lines draw. Why then does the background show through right? Anyway, not to digress. I obviously eventually ended up getting things sorted out both times. Really just wanted to point out one other culprit behind black screens.

Unfortunately I don't think you're missing anything Johnny and I fully agree...seems stupid. I think the best alternatives are to either do as Richard suggested and utilize a CDFV or... You can also use Point To Point Move along with extension snaps... OR You can draw a quick polyline solid. center that, and then snap your CAD to the polyline solid... OR A combination of the above...p-solid>center>pt. to pt. using extension snaps.

That's a standard run of the mill warning. It just means that the file type cannot be previewed directly from Dropbox. Just have him download it if he trusts you aren't trying to infect his computer and it should open just fine.

Looks to me like you have a semi transparent polyline in the plan file somewhere. Can you download to dropbox and just post the link?

What Joe said above is basically the way I handle it. Not sure what exactly you mean by "hardcoding" but I posted the basic macro format I use earlier in the thread... $FilePath = ' PASTE FILE PATH HERE '.to_s.strip.gsub("\\", "/") + "/" I just set copy and paste the file path into that macro which is set to display off to the side in my plan (you can set the file path text to display too just so you can visually verify that the path is correct anytime you're in doubt). That global variable is then used in other macros as necessary. Like I said earlier, there is also a way to use a layout box in the plan file itself but that requires manually linking the layout box to the correct plan file as well...pretty much just as easy to copy and paste the file path to a macro.

Alan, I can't open the link you attached to look at the file in question, but in my experience it CAN be as easy as simply opening the Word document, selecting the desired section, copying, and then simply pasting into Chief. It should automatically just create a Rich Text box and most (if not all) formatting should carry over with it.

Hey Bernie, I wish I could test for you but I got rid of my large format printer. Just realized I didn't use it enough to justify the space it was taking up and that it made more sense just to have the local print shop just do my printing when I need it. Not sure if this makes any difference or not but I'm curious... Is your printer hooked directly to your machine or are you using a print server? I was using an HP JetDirect print server with mine. I wonder if that would make any difference or not in your case. It's not my area of expertise but I think those print servers actually kinda have their own driver independent of the printer......Chief tells the JetDirect card what to do, the JetDirect card takes that fully structured print job, puts it into queue and then tells the printer what to do. At least in my case it seemed to make for more stable communication and the print server seemed to have a more versatile and universal driver that worked across various operating systems regardless of the actual printer drivers.

Anna, Are you talking about dimensioning to the center of the wall like this... ...?? If so, I don't now of any good way to make that automatic short of tweaking your wall definitions which is just a pain and not very practical. Your best bet is just to manually snap the dimension lines to the center of the exterior walls where necessary.

That's interesting. I've personally installed hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of sheets of the stuff and I don't recall that ever being the case. I could have sworn it was all modular in dimension which is why I purposely oversized the width in my video to allow for the expansion gaps. You got me curious though so I just went down into my crawlspace and measured the stuff on my own personal house and its only maybe 1/16" shy of 48" and that's NOT including the tongue. Must vary from manufacturer to manufacturer but I'm pretty positive every brand we use around here is pretty close to a true 48". Yes. We definitely need a gap for expansion but that's an install thing. I don't see why that would necessitate smaller sheets. If plywood is actually being sold 3/8" small and you leave a gap of anything less than a full 3/8" that could easily result in a bad situation anywhere the building was designed at 4ft increments...it could require tiny little rips of plywood at one end of the run, or worse, you might land just shy of the last rimboard. That certainly qualifies as annoying in my book.

Yes, I assume you knew that.... ....because I included it in the post

Quick tip... You can replace steps 1 through 3 by simply using 2 stacked windows and turning off the frame, casing, and sill.

I think your best bet is going to be to create your own line type using CAD>Lines>Create Line Style. You can set your desired line segment lengths there by combining multiple dashes with spacing set to zero and you can set your desired text height as well. Quick example... Example Line.calibz Note that you can also open the line style directly from the library and further modify if you need to. EDIT: Also note that you need to have line weights toggled on if you want to see an accurate representation of what the printed segment length and text heights are actually going to look like.

Hey, that sure is nice. I missed that one. Thanks Mark.

I take it you guys never send anything to a print shop then and that you rarely email plans to anyone? And do you not save a PDF copy of your plans for archives? To me, saving as a non program specific file type is just good practice. And, if you are printing to PDF for anything at all be it email, record, or print shop, that means the print to PDF has to happen anyway. It's not even an extra step. Having said that, if its a legitimate software issue it should of course be fixed but I still haven't seen or heard anything to lead me to the conclusion that it's a Chief problem and not a printer driver problem or simply user error. I've printed directly from Chief using multiple printers and have never experienced the issues the OP is talking about.

Thanks. That's kinda what I figured. I was just curious though if you knew of something else I may have missed.

Maybe, but it sounds to me like he is working on 5 different text files to go with 5 different plans which lends me to believe each of the plans should be referencing it's own unique file (i.e. part of the file path needs to be unique to each plan).

Hey Joe (or anyone else in the know), since we're on this subject... Do you happen to know what this built in global variable is used for... $FILENAME = - ?? It seems to always have a value of "-".