Alaskan_Son

Yes. I understand Glenn. My comment still stands. The reason we have to use another column (or a custom column) as I also suggested is BECAUSE we cannot change the "type" for doors or doorways...which is what we would have to be able to do to edit the term "doorway".

As Jerry said you can change the Color Off setting in Preferences to Grayscale but if you prefer white I'd stick with the Black and White setting. You'll just have to adjust this setting for your wall fill color to make it a little lighter... When you have Color Off set to Black and White, the program will automatically change all fills to whichever of the 2 is closest to the fill you have assigned. Therefore, adjusting the color so its a little lighter will make it closer to white and therefore it will display as white. Just adjust it little by little till you hit that sweet spot where the fill switches to white.

You can't actually edit the "type" for doors or doorways. Probably best to get rid of that column and either change the name of and use one of the others or add your own custom column to the list.

I think that would probably work just fine and thought of that myself. Those extra floors and multiple levels can really be a hassle though (both to manage and to display) especially if a person isn't all that proficient with the software...even if they are proficient it can be a pain. I think the best solution probably depends on exactly what you want/need to display, which tools you're most comfortable with, and whether or not you think you might need to modify it at any point. While we're on that subject I'll throw this tip out there... Using the solid method or the roof method a person could (and probably SHOULD) save a copy of the original solid or roof (or molding or p-solid or whatever) before boolean operations, converting to symbol, or other non-reversible modifications, that way they wouldn't have to rebuild from scratch in the case of any changes. They could just revert to the original building blocks. Could just save a little time.

I don't think you're missing anything super simple. I finally got back to the office and took your plan for a quick test drive and after playing with it for a bit here's what I found. Whether the plant images will display or not seems to depend on: A. Whether you're using AND displaying a color fill or not... OR B Whether the camera is set to show shadows or not... Which leads me to believe that the fact images can even be displayed in a vector view may be more of a side effect to the new shadow, lighting, and color abilities that were added in X8 and maybe not a feature in and of itself. Also..."Display In Color When Possible" will cause your images to be full color regardless of any other color settings you have. When that box is checked, the images will be in color even when your color display is off. So, if you want your plant images to be in black and white, that setting needs to be unchecked AND the color display IN PLAN must be off when you send the view to layout. Simply turning off the color display in layout will not do the trick by itself. To sum up, I believe the plant images displaying might be more of a fluke than a feature (I guess only Chief knows) and I still don't think plant images are the way to go for vector views. IMO they don't really look that nice. I would be using 3D plants, plant CAD blocks, or CAD blocks created using 3D plants. Anyway, hopefully that helps you.

What David is saying is that under Options you can designate it as... -Not recessed at all (uncheck recessed) in which case the casing will sit on top of your outermost exterior layer. -Recessed to Sheathing Layer in which case the casing will recess to the surface of your first exterior layer. -Recessed to Main Layer in which case the casing will recess to the surface of your outermost main layer.

I actually already had watched the video when I responded. There are at least a couple things you didn't do or that I couldn't see though. 1. Whether you had always display images in color on or off. I guess that one might not matter though as you had it set the same for both plans. 2. I'm not sure I ever saw you send to layout in the problem plan with color fill unchecked and color DISPLAY toggled on.

O ya... There's also the plant image settings that could possibly come into play but I doubt it.

You're welcome. You really got me curious now and I want to test when I get back to the office. Just to make sure we are on the same page here though… There are three different things to look at with regard to color display. 1. The setting to always display images in color when possible. 2. The color fill checkbox when sending to layout. 3. The actual color display (in both plan and layout). Make sure to explore your settings for all of those.

Wish I was at my computer to test... In your other plan do you have images set to always display in color when possible? If you do, it's possible that they are still allowed to display (albeit in grayscale) when you have colors toggled off. Just a thought.

Larry, your plants won't show if you send as plot lines because they are based on images. Images will not create any plot lines. If you need to send as plot lines and still display plants, maybe consider switching to 3-D plants or overlapping a non-plot line view for just the plants. I'm away from my computer or I would test this, but I believe it has always been that way unless Chief made a special exception for plant images that was recently removed with the latest update. No matter what though, the plant image could not create plot lines. The image itself would have to be the exception. And by the way, the reason they show in color is that you are seeing the colors in the plant image. Once you turn colors off there are no plot lines to display.

You can set any symbol to act as an electrical item, and you can change the CAD block for any symbol to an arrow. Between the 2 it seems like you should be able to get exactly what you're looking for. At the most it might require putting the item on a unique layer, turning that layer off for 3D views, and unchecking "Include In Schedule" for that object.

You're more than welcome sir.

Yep. hotkeys are fantastic. I customize them and use them extensively (I rarely...if ever touch my mouse) in excel, word, and my PDF editor, and I use them quite a bit in Windows as well, but for whatever reason I don't use them quite as much in Chief. I think its because I have to use the mouse so much anyway that I don't feel they save me quite as much time as they do with other programs. I definitely still use them in Chief. Just not quite as much.

We've had that ability for some time now. Oldest version I currently have installed is X6 but we had it at least that far back. I think we had it a lot further back than that too.

At least a couple ways to do this... 1. Open the cabinet, select the face item on your cabinet and then down where it says "Appliance/Door/Drawer" click on "Library" and select whatever door style you want. 2. In an elevation view, simply select a door style from your library and click on the face item you want to change. It works essentially just like the material painter. Note: Option #2 will change all default door fronts at the same time, all default drawer fronts at the same time, or custom face items on an item by item basis.

I guess I wasn't clear enough. The crown will not align by rebuilding 3D. I'm talking about rebuilding before you ever even made the 1/16" adjustment.

Michael, are you already using the %layout.label% macro in your layouts?

This has been a bug for several versions now and I have reported it. I suspect its something they're just having a hard time tracking down and since it fixes itself as soon as 3D is rebuilt its likely fairly low on the priority list. Anyway, as Graham pointed out, open and close one of the cabinets, click Rebuild 3D, or (what I usually do) Undo and Redo (Ctrl X and Cntrl Y).

Those are controlled by the Windows, Labels and Doors, Labels layer settings. Change the text style for those layers to whatever you want them to be for any given Layer Set.

I think the only way to get what you're looking for would be to change the truss labels to a custom macro. Try this... 1. Open Text Macro Management, click New, and name the macro "Custom Truss" (or whatever you want). 2. In the Value field enter the following: truss_number-1 3. Check "Evaluate", under Context select "Owner Object", and then click OK and Done 4. Group select your trusses (easiest way is probably to switch to the truss tool, hold down shift, and draw a marquis selection box around all your trusses), in the Label tab select Specify Label, and then enter the following: TR-%Custom Truss%

Not sure I have a perfect answer for you Scott, but that layer essentially controls anything and everything built on floor zero.

Open the schedule and uncheck "Use Callout For Label"

I suspect you're using the Perspective FLOOR Overview or Perspective FLOOR Camera (which only display the single floor). Use one of the FULL cameras.

You don't think that perhaps posting the plan (even a stripped down version) might be a good idea do you? ; )