Alaskan_Son

If you're manually placing outlets, you can temporarily change the kitchen room type to a Bath. Once you're done, simply change the room type back to Kitchen. If you're trying to auto place outlets, I think the best you'll probably be able to do is to first auto place outlets, then: group select the outlets you wish to change to a GFCI open the SYMBOL specification DBX>Options and check GFCI click on the 2D Block tab and select the GFCI block You can also pull GFCI outlets directly from the library. EDIT: I don't normally use Auto Place Outlets, but after Chopsaw mentioned something from the Help files below, I tested it out and Auto Place Outlets should automatically place GFCI outlets over all kitchen countertops. Works for me anyway.

Looks like a decent video card. I think its just a big plan. I would personally just limit my time in 3D views on that one, and delete or turn off what I didn't really need. There are other methods of dealing with large plans that you consider as well such as completing different wings or floors in different plans and then combining later (if necessary). P.S. I edited my last post to add some information after you quoted it. Might be worth glancing at it again in case you can get anything more from it.

Here are my comments for whatever they're worth (in no particular order)... I tried your plan out on my desktop. Very slow for me as well. Working in plan view not bad (only a few seconds lag time for undo/redo operations) but working in 3D it was taking between a minute and a minute and a half for the same operations. I don't see any reason why your storage space would come into play at all. That should never have any affect on your speed. The SSD should make a difference...not because of the increased storage but because of the technology...data access is just much faster with an SSD. I suspect the reason for the slowness may have more to do with your video card than anything else you've mentioned. Part of the slowness on my end might be my RAM although I doubt it (I was getting low memory warnings with your plan open) but you seem to have plenty of that. I don't think the CPU usage displaying as zero is a big deal. Mine looks like that all the time when Chief is sitting idle. It will jump up when you're actually doing something but usually when you're looking at the task manager you've stopped doing anything. Trying moving your mouse around the screen on Chief wile task manager is visible or try zooming in and out on a 3D view and see what that number does. While creating a 3D view of your plan my CPU usage jumped up to 100% for a few seconds, dropped back down to around 30%, jumped back up to 100%, dropped back down, jumped back up etc. I think its bouncing back and forth between the CPU and the video card during those operations. At the end of the day, I'm betting it's either: A. Your CPU and maybe one of it's settings (the plan is just huge so there may not be much you can do) B. Your video card. Probably both actually. What are your video card specs? Remember that the video card does much of the heavy lifting when it comes to normal 3D views.

I like

Sorry, just realized my spacing is wrong, but you should be able to get the idea...You can do this pretty much automatically by building that with a couple additional floors with nothing but a joist layer (no ceiling height) and then changing the joist direction for one of the floors...I have attached a quick sample plan (please note that you could leave auto framing on with this system but I turned it off just to create the cutaway affect. Quick example.plan P.S. Nothing wrong with doing it manually like the guys suggested above. Just offering an alternative. There are other ways to "skin this cat" too but now you should have a couple.

In my experience its actually one of the more common reason for the "I can't figure out why..." problems many users have.

I'm assuming he is referring to a Nana Wall type SGD (sliding glass door).

The 2 biggest thing to consider with Text vs. Rich Text in my opinion... Normal TEXT can be controlled via layer settings so that the same piece of text can be displayed differently in different layer sets and at different scales. Formatting options are limited though and can only be set for the entire text box (i.e. its all bold and underlined or not bold or underline at all). RICH TEXT can be formatted at a charachter level but you cannot control text style by layer.

Re: formatting with macros. You can only format the entire macro so any real amount of formatting requires a lot of macros. So...for all intents and purposes, NO, you cannot control formatting in a text macro. Re: The rest... Store notes in the library Store notes in a warehouse plan in CAD Detail(s) Store notes in a warehouse plan in plan view(s) Store notes in the actual plan file in CAD Detail(s) Store note in the actual plan in plan view(s) Store notes on layout pages (dragged off to the side when not in use) Store notes in CAD Details in layout Store notes in text macros Store notes in referenced text file(s) Display notes from a CAD Detail Display notes from plan views Place notes directly into layout Am I missing anything? A couple other things I think are worth really considering when deciding on the best system: Do you work solo or will you be collaborating with other Chiefers? This is a biggie IMO as it can really have a huge affect on the way you might want to set up any referenced files. You may not even want to use referenced files at all if you don't want to set up a strict file management system. Is this a one time use plan file or will this plan file be used again in the future? Again, the answer to this question may affect how you use referenced files or whether you want to use them at all. If its a one time use plan, once the plans go out the door you don't have to worry about making sure everything is properly linked. If you're going to use it again in a month...might be a different story. Do you change up your file management structure very often? May have some bearing on the 2 answers and decisions from above. At the end of the day, I don't think there's any right answer. There are benefits associated with all the above. You just have to figure out what works best for you and your system.

You bet, and FWIW, on further investigation I have concluded that muntins don't actually have a depth. They appear to simply be a zero thickness "face". I remember now that I've needed to just manually build thicker muntins using solids...

Not sure what you mean by thickness. You can set the WIDTH here... but I personally don't know how to change the depth.

Name is Michael, but yep, Alaska is fine : ) I took a look at your plan real quick and I'm not sure how you placed those windows but they're just spaced apart a bit is all. All you have to do is go into Defaults>Window and set your Minimum Separation to 0". Then your windows should bump right up next to each other.

In short, there are only 3 ways I know of to get what you're after... 1. Center the lines manually in the window label. 2. Use a text box along with a referenced context macro and then you can center justify the text. 3. Use Ruby to center the text. This method doesn't work all that well though because Ruby can only calculate the number of characters in any given label and not the width of those characters (which can vary a lot from one font to the next and one character to the next). This can be improved by using a monospaced or fixed-width font however...Ruby cannot deal with half spaces either. This can result in some very inconsistent centering. Better than what you have otherwise, but not perfect. I think you should make a suggestion for center justifying text output from labels.

Are you using macros for the label or entering that information manually? Can you post a screenshot of the actual label in the window DBX?

Alex, if I'm understanding you correctly, I think you might be going about that in the wrong way. If this is what you're talking about... Then I would suggest you try to use actual window setting and mulled units... Otherwise you'll be stuck doing tons of potentially unnecessary CAD work to create the muntins, more CAD work to create the opening label, and if you make any changes to the window?? You guessed it...do it all over again. Sometimes the CAD work may be necessary, but this may not be one of those times...I guess only you know that answer to that dilemma.

If you're referring to manually entering "static" data into those fields then yes...of course we can do that. I guess I was assuming automation was the desired end product and that Johnny would have already realized he can enter data manually. I guess I could be assuming incorrectly though. There are only 3 ways I know of to get window header information into the schedule and PLEASE correct me if you think I'm wrong... 1. Enter "dumb" data manually for every window using one of the aforementioned fields or by adding a sub component. 2. Use the provided header column in the schedule. 3. Fairly complex ustom user macros. If you know of a 4th method I'd be very interested to hear what it is.

Yep. Definitely doable. Would require some custom macros to set up though and some thought given as to the best way to make it work for your particular desired output. Quick answer though is that there isn't anything you can quickly and easily change without using Ruby and text macros.

As most of you know the settings in the components list are not currently persistent...or are they?? I just realized that when you enter things into the manufacturer field, code field, comment field, etc. that those entries are actually saved with the cabinet. Yes, if you resize the cabinet, all those entries are cleared, but if you return that cabinet to its previous state, it will remember those previous settings. This means that you could take a single cabinet (maybe for a particular manufacturer), change it a little, enter the desired code, pricing, comments, etc...change it again, re-enter information...change it again, re-enter information...etc. Your result would be a highly dynamic cabinet. Add it to your library. Next time you need to use that brand, you can use that single cabinet for a broad range of automatic codes, descriptions, pricing, comments, etc. Here's a quick video demonstrating what I'm talking about... BTW, this isn't just useful for for cabinets but for windows, doors, etc.

I think this statement is a little misleading. Everything does not live in the plan file. The question was whether to place notations in layout or in the plan file itself. If you place all your view specific notations in the plan file as I believe most of us would suggest, then yes...all the notations live in the plan. If however you place notations directly into the layout then no, those do NOT live in the plan file. They live only in the layout. I think there might be legitimate reasons to do this from time to time, but there aren't many of those instances. Also, anno sets don't actually carry info. for anything per se. They are nothing more than a way to organize your various active defaults. This particular area seems to be very misunderstood by a lot of people. For this reason I actually kinda think Annotation Sets could be renamed to "Annotation Settings" or "Annotation Defaults". As it is now, the name seems to carry the idea that annotation sets are something like layer sets which really isn't accurate at all. When you activate an annotation set it simply changes the following: Your Current CAD Layer (the layer you want to draw any new CAD work on). Your active Dimension Defaults (the dimensions settings you would like to use for any new dimensions) Your active Rich Text and Text Defaults (the text settings you would like to use for any new text) Your active Callout Defaults (the callout settings you would like to use for any new callouts) Your active Marker Defaults (the marker settings you would like to use for any new markers) Your active Arrow Defaults (the arrow settings you would like to use for any new arrows) OPTIONALLY your active Layer Set. That last one is I believe the cause of a lot of confusion. Your layer sets are really what is responsible for storing and displaying all the various information you want to display. Annotation Sets can optionally just act as a sort of switch to activate the layer set. Anyway, I just wanted to clarify that its not anno sets that hold any of that information. The LAYOUT VIEW actually holds more info than anything including: The current Layer Set being used in that view The current Floor being used in that view. The current Annotation Set (or Active Defaults if an annotation set is not being used). The current Reference Floor (if one is being used) The current Reference Layer Set (if applicable) After the layout view its the layer set settings that are most responsible for "remembering" and displaying plan info. in layout including which dimensions, text objects, callouts, markers, and arrows are to be displayed (based on their layers and the related layer settings).

I don't like to get into these SAM/template method conversations too often because there are simply far too many variables and different workflows that work for different people, but I'd like to see if I can help answer a couple of your questions... 1) If your elevation views or cross sections aren't set to Update Always, they will need to be manually updated. They're just doing what you told them to do, and it shouldn't matter if you changed the view name or not. The one other thing that could possibly happen though is that you could have deleted the associated camera...in which case you would have to delete and resend that particular view. 2) I would strongly recommend you place as many of those view specific annotations as possible in the actual plan file view and NOT on layout.

By the way, here's a pretty cool feature I just stumbled across... Highlight a portion of text in any given post and a little option pops up to "Quote this". It allows us to very quickly and easily select and quote just that small portion. A big timesaver.

We do have that filter in advanced search options. You are correct though. We are having major problems with the advanced search. It doesn't actually appear to work at all.

I can very easily reproduce this issue as well. You can always sort through a particular members topics and posts too...

A couple ways... 1. Edit>Edit Area>Edit Area (All Floors). Marquis select everything and then either use Transform Replicate and Reflect or use Reflect About Object. 2. Tools>Reverse Plan as Jay mentioned. The latter will not reverse any of your terrain stuff. Only the house. NOTE: You can also optionally use Edit Area in one of the other modes if you want to be more selective with what you are flipping.

If that IS true, there are several other ways to deal with that. The first few that come to mind though... 1. Put the markers on their own layer and turn the layer off. 2. Put the markers on their own layer and change that layer to the invisible line style 3. Change the marker radius to zero 4. Use a polyline or molding polyline with a macro. I just posted a free toolset for this.