Alaskan_Son

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.

BTW Scott, in case you or others don't realize this, those CAD Default settings for line length and angle settings are VIEW SPECIFIC. So...for example, if you use your reference display you could draw a second group of lines on another floor with different length and angle formats (you could even create a blank floor specifically for this purpose if you wanted). OR, you could create a Plan Footprint CAD Detail and use a second line/angle format that way. You could even send overlapping views to layout and get another set of formatting that way. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there.

I decided to watch your video because I was curious how other people might be displaying their lot line lengths and angles. You said something that has got me curious… Is there a particular reason you mentioned using a CAD line to display a dimension in your floor plan (I think you mentioned dimensioning to a toilet maybe) INSTEAD OF simply using an actual dimension line?

No no no. Thank you. Check this one out...

Check this out. Only played around with it briefly, but you can use this same technique to reshape almost anything...

Very clever solution Yusef. Thanks : )

I could only get those lines to show up by converting that view using CAD Detail From View. How are you sending that view to layout? And what PDF printer are you using?

You betcha!

Change the door swing.

This came up again on another thread so I decided to go ahead and make a quick version of this for free. I posted the tool HERE. I didn't go so far as creating a ft.-in. version or azimuth/quadrant bearing version but those are possible as well...I just don't feel inclined to create those for free because they're not something I personally need and they would take a fair amount of time to write.