Alaskan_Son

Are you suggesting that there should be another?

By the way, if you're using a metric template, you should have no reason for adding the extra text at all. The macro could simply be... %room.standard_area.round(2).to_s.sub(".", ",")% and Chief would automatically add the m².

Just to be clear, Chief only uses Grid Rounding if you have it set that way. You can always change your defaults to Distance Rounding if you prefer. I would rarely recommend using Distance Rounding though.

For the record, I would personally probably write a custom text macro for that situation instead of putting it all in a text box. I was mostly just trying to show a quick example. It works as written, but one problem with long chunks of text in room labels is that sometimes the shear length of the macro text and the resulting text box size will keep the text box from recognizing the room that you want it to and you end up having to reposition the text box. A minor but annoying little problem sometimes.

You can draw very precisely in Chief once you get used to using the proper workflows. Using the CAD Detail From View tool and Copy/Paste Hold Position like I mentioned above is a really big one. Using things like Point To Point Move, Center Object, the Align/Distribute tools, the Rotate/Resize About Point functionality, drawing with the proper Arc Creation Mode toggled, using the Enter Coordinates dialog, and adjusting the Dialog Number/Angle Style to a more precise format when necessary...to list just a few of many, are all things you can do to improve the accuracy of your drawings. It just comes down to using the right tools. If you're lining something up with your eye, I'd say 99 times out of 100 you just took a wrong turn.

Not all objects in Chief have snaps. As you've found for example, you can snap to a wall's interior and exterior surface and you can snap to the interior and exterior extents of the main layers but not to any other layers. For these layers and for other areas where Chief simply doesn't provide the desired snaps, I recommend you add a little extra step to your workflow: Use the CAD Detail From View tool and the Paste Hold Position tool to get the snaps you need. Create CAD Detail From View and then Copy/Paste Hold Position from that view back to your original view and you'll have precise snaps to work with. I think its also worth mentioning that Chief automatically generates some temporary CAD in cross sections that are called Cross Section Lines and that live on the Cross Section Lines layer. These lines can be snapped to, but they're only generated for parametric objects that you're actually cutting through. In other words, you can automatically get some of the snaps you need by simply using camera positioning in some cases.

If you're having problems with one or 2 rooms in a plan, this is another place where using text boxes instead of (or even in addition to) the auto labels is worth a look. Again, you can simply open up that one text box and adjust the rounding behavior if you wanted to... %room.name% %room.standard_area.to_sq_m.round(2).to_s.sub(".", ",")% m2

I would encourage you to always search for a balance with regard to using automated features and using manual options that will enhance your capabilities. Chief will automate a ton of things but with all that automation there are costs and limitations. You could shoehorn a lot into the automated features, but sometimes it just makes a lot more sense to stop futzing around with it and use a different method. Room labels for example...Yes, you can use the auto room label and place a macro in your Default Label, but then you're also stuck with a single text format for both the name and the area. Start adding more information to your room labels or try to start including room numbers and you quickly find that it leaves a lot to be desired. Creating text boxes with custom text macros and copying/pasting those is an extra step, but its FAR more flexible and very easy to make changes to individual room labels on the fly (think tings like removing information from rooms where its not important or doesn't fit very well).

This^^^^ except that you can speed it up by group selecting and addressing them all in one go.

Actually, we still have Export to Res Check. That's a different tool and I don't believe anything was changed in that regard. The newly listed feature is a simple CSV export option to replace the thermal envelope data that we used to get in the Materials List.

There are quite a few methods that can be used. A few things to remember though that will hopefully help you... Under normal circumstances and unless they're manually manipulated, walls will automatically build through until they hit a roof or ceiling plane. This means you can either drag walls up/down in 3D (not the most ideal) or keep your roof planes inside your walls. Under normal circumstances, unless they're manually manipulated, and unless they're under a roof or ceiling plane, walls will continue up until they reach the height of your defined ceiling. This means you could set the height of your parapet walls using the room ceiling height or by building roof planes directly over the walls. You can create a room's ceiling using a manual ceiling plane and/or by using the room's ceiling definition. This means your room definition ceiling height could set the parapet wall heights and a manually placed ceiling plane could be used for your actual ceiling. As Ryan already mentioned, you can use multiple floors to further add to your possible options.

I agree. Not sure if this is the thread you're talking about or not, but here are my thoughts on the subject...

This should really be posted in the General Q&A section. Delete this thread, post a new one over there, and you'll likely get a few more answers pretty quickly.

The defining macro needs to be executed somewhere onscreen or else the global will never be defined. It doesn't necessarily need to be visible, but Chief needs to render it somehow. If you want to use the Text Field for example, then you would need to have the Note Schedule placed somewhere in your view (even off to the side) and the Text Column would need to be displayed. Because the Text Column is displayed, the defining code will be executed, and then global variable will be set. The problem with the Text Field is that the Note Schedule is the only place that text can be rendered onscreen aside from the actual data entry field. If you want to use a Custom Object Field, you could still use the schedule method, but there are other more complex methods you can use as well. For example, you could just include the defining text in your actual callout label in such a way that it is not displayed, like this maybe... %simple_schedule_number%%($test = custom_fields["Test Field"]); ""%

Just in case you aren't aware of this, you can actually just enter that code directly into the label as well like this if you prefer... %automatic_label% %width% x %height% (Glass Area %((height-4.in)*(width-4.in)).round(1)%)

The %automatic_label% macro will report values according the Automatic Label settings even if those settings are greyed out...

Objects set to be included in schedules can automatically either use their standard Label or they can use a Callout label but not both. Whether a Callout is used for the label or not is controlled by the schedule(s) that object is included in (Labels>Use Callout For Label). The Callout label is limited to the schedule prefix and the schedule number. If you want to include more information than that, you will need to uncheck Use Callout For Label. If you're using the Automatic Label then you can choose to Include Schedule Number. If you're using a Custom Label though you'll have to manually include %schedule_number% in your label. You can also optionally have both the standard label and a callout label by placing a callout manually and connecting it to the window using a line with an arrow, but that's typically more work than its worth IMO.

Never assume its being worked on and always report things that you really care to see fixed or changed. Like every other company out there, Chief has limited resources, and they're going to work on higher priority items first. If there is some obscure tool that only 3 people use that's just completely broken and all 3 people report it, its still likely to take a back seat to the 20 complaints they see for some other tool that is just not working as expected. I personally don't think its very productive for users to even share when a problem has been acknowledged by technical support because it really means next to nothing and gives a false sense of assurance that the problem is being addressed. Just because its on their radar doesn't mean its getting worked on. It only means that they know about it and that they plan to work on it when it makes its way to the top of the list. One of the best ways (if not the best way) to help ensure that it reaches the top of the list is to report the problem yourself so that your name gets added to the list of people who care to see it fixed. I also think its worth noting that the problem you're experiencing may not even be the same problem another user is experiencing even though they seem similar on the surface. Sometimes its simply impossible to know for sure until you submit all the required information. Again, if you're experiencing a problem and you care enough to see the issue fixed, report it yourself.

I agree. Seems like a bug in this regard.

This is an extremely powerful and robust approach and what I recommend doing as well. If you're not aware, you can also group select those polylines and generate a combined material list. You can then even further filter your results afterward by editing the Layer Set being used for that Materials List.

You should send in a report as well if you care enough to see it fixed.

Perhaps not. The problems you're seeing are the type of thing pretty commonly caused by using that sort of methodology though so I thought it was worth mentioning just in case.

Your various room definitions from past changes keep carrying forward. You'll need to clear out those room definitions to get the expected behavior. Try this... Switch to a Wall tool Hold down the Shift key and group select all the room defining walls on the first floor using a Marquis (if you get extra walls in there, that's fine). Cut those walls to your clipboard Save the plan and close it. This will clear out the old room definitions from that plan. Open the plan right back up. Paste Hold Position Build Foundation You'll have to go back and redefine your various rooms as necessary, but this should return the foundation behavior to what you would normally expect. In my opinion this looks like yet another example of why Chief has always discouraged the Save As Method. It keeps carrying problems and file bloat forward from one plan to the next. In this case you had room definitions from prior plans or from prior plan iterations causing all sorts of problems. They would have automatically been cleared out from memory had the rooms (defining walls) been deleted from past plans, but it seems that never happened and so you were left chasing your tail because no matter what you did, those old room definitions kept taking over.

Again, changing that setting isn’t what’s doing it. Simply opening the dialog and making any change whatsoever will do the same thing...even just clicking Okay will do it.

You are correct. That capability is gone. It was replaced by some much more robust capabilities though IMO. And you can't configure “Dimensions, Overall” specifically for Automatic Dimensions. It is the system default so that if you open an automatic dimension and place a check in the Default checkbox, it will be moved to the "Dimensions, Overall" layer. Again though, clicking Okay will also simultaneously modify the string which will change its system default layer to "Dimensions, Manual" (legacy plans) or "Dimensions, Plan" (X13 templates). And sorry if my statements were confusing. I wasn't really suggesting using the Default checkbox or using the "clicking Okay" method. Just meant to describe how it works. By the way, I did make a mistake in my last post. I should have said.... I went back and corrected it. Hope that helps clarify things.