Alaskan_Son

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 "-".

Ya, I totally get it Joe. I'm sure you can manage it just fine. It's statements like this one though... I personally have multiple plans open all the time as well and I want to see accurate info. in each one of those plans. If a person is using those same global variables in more than one of those plans (which may not be the case for you but I know it can be the case for some), only one of the plans can actually be returning the proper values. I just know of people who have unfortunately actually given up on using macros either in part or entirely...due to improperly managed global variables just like these ones I happen to know for a fact that it's actually a much bigger problem than people even let on. I've had more than one party contact me privately about this particular issue. Honestly, until Chief provides us more of the capabilities we've been requesting, there is no perfect solution. On a side note though, you can use a hack I mentioned in another thread to actually utilize a layout box right in the plan which would stabilize that whole scenario. It just requires linking that layout box to the correct plan. You could even set multiple file paths for various purposes by using multiple layout boxes. The layout boxes placed into plans will remember the file path too.

That's very kind of you to provide this Joe but I would caution anybody thinking about using this method to set file paths to be very careful... The file path is going to based on whichever layout box last activated the global variables and this could conceivably and very easily set the wrong file info. It may work fine if you're very careful and consistent with your workflow but I would personally encourage people to stick with setting those file paths manually. It's much safer and far more stable. No, it's not automatic but then again you also know it's not going to change on you. There's a fine line between automation and over-automation. Not saying Joe's macro isn't a valid method, just that it should be used with eyes wide open. I've seen a lot of problems caused by people trying to take automation a little too far...or at least too far for some users.

I suspect that in the past you had your line type, color, and weight to be set by layer... ...but now you don't.

My idea didn't prove to be as effective as I thought it might be so I'm not even going to go over it. If you really want to use the custom arrow style, I think your best bet is to first... Create your arrows individually and block them Place an insertion point in those blocks right where you want them to snap to your line Set up your line and label how you want it. Snap the arrow blocks to the ends of your line Block that whole thing and add it to your library Then, when you want to place your joist direction labels... Place the block in the plan and first rotate as necessary Explode the block and resize the line Snap your arrow blocks to the ends of your line. Doesn't actually take all that long.

What does your arrow look like? The reason is I as is that I have a solution in mind that might work for you but it depends on the shape of your arrow.

Hey Alan, There are a good handful of ways to accomplish what you're trying to do, but here's one of the most straightforward in case you haven't considered it... Simply set that wall to be a railing and give it a very tall and narrow glass top rail. Just a thought.

We had that in X8 and probably back as far as X4 or X5. Maybe I should have been more clear... We have the entirely new function attribute for rooms. IMO though that attribute essentially does what the type_name attribute used to do. That is it carries through the name of the room's function which is chosen from a preset list. The type_name may not be in and of itself a new attribute but it has new possibilities in that it can now be used to return a custom type_name that is set by the user. I guess my point is that its a new functionality to look at if a person is asking about new attributes. I'm not sure how useful those will be. Well they're still new attributes and they're certainly useful to me.

You left out some of my personal faves... layer_line_color layer_line_style layer_line_weight layer_text_style and we also have type_name to go with the new room type capabilities.

I'm really curious what exactly you're talking about. How would Ruby know the file path based on the file path of your plan? I assume you are trying to set the file path for a different file right? You would have to set that independently no matter what Ruby capabilities Chief gave us wouldn't you? As it is right now we can DISPLAY the entire file path using the %file% macro like I said. Accessing the file name would essentially have to be done like Joe said using a layout box but that could actually be done directly in the plan file too. Not sure what the point would be though. Can you possibly clarify what you're trying to do with that file path and how it is connected to the actual plan file path? If I understand correctly what you're trying to do, I typically just set that with a global variable when I first start using the plan or macro. I just copy and paste the file path right from windows explorer into a macro that looks something like this... $FilePath = ' PASTE FILE PATH HERE '.to_s.strip.gsub("\\", "/") + "/" Only takes a few seconds.. NOTE: Ruby doesn't like the backslashes used in Windows Explorer so they need to be replaced with forward slashes using a standard run of the mill global substitution (.gsub). The trick though is to make sure and use single quotes only. I only bring this up because it took me forever to figure out a way to auto-magically substitute backslashes and thought I might save someone else the time and heartache.

I think one invaluable feature that is probably too often overlooked is "Resize About"... If you understand what it's doing and set it accordingly, I think it can make our jobs a LOT easier.