Alaskan_Son

For the freestanding microwave, you're overthinking it a bit. No need for any offsets. Put those back to zero and just put the microwave where it goes. You'll need to temporarily override bumping and pushing by either toggling it off or by holding down the Control key.

This is a long standing issue when moving files from one computer or screen resolution to another. It kinda sucks. Quickest thing is to group select all text using Match Properties tool, click Open, and then click Okay.

Never had version 10 but as long as I've used Chief there has been an Import>3D Symbol option to import 3D DWG files.

That's what the Reference Display is for. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the Help files. Click Help>Launch Help (or hot F1) and search for "Reference".

Specs all look fine. I suspect there's a hardware issue and my guess is that its an issue with the Hard Drive. That's just a guess though without having access to any of the files. I would run a performance test on the machine. I usually use this one... https://www.passmark.com/products/performancetest/ This should give you an idea of how the various components are working. You can also open up Task Manager and watch what's happening while Chief is being used. In addition to all that, I would make sure Chief is recognizing and using the proper GPU. Some systems have an onboard GPU. I doubt this is your problem but its worth checking out anyway.

This is definitely Chief. I see it all the time. I’ve taken to using multiple text boxes side by side for much better justification and alignment control.

The problems you're alluding to can be largely if not entirely eliminated by changing your Arrow Defaults in Layout so that only the Tail is set to Attach...

I don't know the answer to that. I barely even know what a "porch" is or under what specific circumstances people are using that particular room type. The term just seems to mean all sorts of different things to different people. At the end of the day, Chief gave us options though, both with regard to which Room Type we use and with regard to the various framing controls (Framing Groups, Retain Framing, Manual Framing, etc.). If you don't think the behavior is correct you can always send that in. I personally don't have a problem with it and I don't know...maybe there's a good reason for it.

That's because you painted the wall on the left side with a different siding material. If you are going to change the material type being used on you exterior walls then you should really create a new wall type. At any rate, what you need is for the finish layer of the front wall to run all the way through to the end. To get that to happen, select the wall and then click on the Edit Wall Layer Intersections tool in the Edit toolbar, and then drag the finish layer through to the end.

It's just a behavior associated with the Porch room type. If the bottom of the defined floor structure in the Porch room is higher than the bottom of the defined floor structure in the deck room, then the deck will build through.

You snapped to your finish layer on the left side (the correct thing) and to your framing layer on the right side (the incorrect thing).

This is most likely because objects with similar materials are getting combined into a single material control. Can you post the 3D DWG?

Looks to me like your objects aren't properly aligned. Might help to make sure your various snaps are turned on, especially Bumping/Pushing...

You bet. Just a few extra little tips too... Boxes, Polyline Solids, and Solids all behave a little differently. Editing Boxes and Polyline Solids in certain ways will automatically convert them to Solids. When rotating and resizing Solids, it's important that you select the correct Face if you want to get the desired results. Group selecting the aforementioned objects before rotating will commonly have a different affect than a single click selection and can give you additional capabilities.

Yes. Just export those few required layers as an older DWG version. Easy peasy.

There are a few ways to do it and I believe the behavior has changed a bit since X10 but it used to be that the key was to start with a 3D box (not a polyline solid). In X12, we have more options using polyline solids but here's a method that still uses a box: Draw a 3D Box in plan view that is shaped appropriately to match the lumber size you'll be using. While the 3D Box Specification dialog is still open, adjust the Rotation by setting the correct axis and roof angle, and then click once on the appropriate Rotate+/- button. Switch to an elevation view and use Point to Point Move to set the object on top of the roof surface. Switch back to Plan View and rotate the Box to be parallel to your valley. This part is most easily just done freehand using the Rotate handle. If you want something more precise it requires some more complex extra mathematical steps that I don't want to get into.

I do have some existing macro systems that would handle this just fine but they use the window label instead of the header label and would require that you totally change your current workflow. I wish you would just try what I’m telling you though, it would be way easier. You keep saying it won’t work but you’re incorrect and obviously haven’t tried it.

I would recommend the following: Temporarily switch both your number and dimension style to decimal feet or decimal inches. These just make the calculations easier and more accurate. Group select your site plan objects and click on the Transform Replicate tool. Check Resize and use a resize factor of New Dimension/Old Dimension (new dimension divided by old dimension).

I don't know. I can definitely see why they handle it this way. The thing is that any given window company can have literally hundreds or even thousands of "standard" sizes in any given line but they'll build to just about any size we want. Add to that the possible component combinations (combined units, slider section widths, interior color, exterior color, etc.) and the possibilities are very seriously almost infinite and could easily result in a library with hundreds of thousands of options. Anderson chose to do something pretty reasonable IMO by just giving us the basic building blocks so we could size to what we want and combine options as we see fit. A couple other window libraries were done differently and in a more robust way, but I would argue that they both have some notable problems: Pella did basically the same thing as Anderson but also chose to include some labels with custom macros so that labeling was automatic when sizing matched a "standard" size. The problem is that the end user would need to know exactly what Pella's sizing rules are to get the benefits, and even then, it would be super easy to include some parameters in their design regarding sash, frame depth, color, muntins, etc. that would nullify everything. Point is, at the end of the day, you could easily end up with a "standard size" window that is impossible to order, OR all your windows simply end up labeled "Custom". The latter is always the case in my experience anyway as I believe the label code they included hasn't been written or maintained properly. Marvin decided to include all their "standard" sizes but the result is a library with nearly 14,000 items. Compare that to the size of the entire Chief Architect Core Catalogs which contain less than 10,000 items. Even with those 14,000 items, you still have almost all the same problems. You can still order almost any size you want, and it would be super easy to build a combination that can't actually be ordered. The problems with the Marvin catalog are even worse though because they give each item a custom label meaning that if you later change the size of the window, the label will be wrong. At the end of the day, I think Anderson's approach is entirely reasonable and took the approach I would have likely taken as well.

Yes. Using a custom macro. In this particular case, a simple ternary operator should suffice. Something like this... room == nil ? "Exterior" : room.name

You can also just mask with the subfascia and/or CAD.

I took a quick look at your plan, and it literally only took a matter of seconds to clean it up. I'm pretty sure you're just not using the Join Roof Planes tool correctly. You need to: 1. Make sure that the appropriate edge is selected and highlighted. 2. Click the Join Roof Planes tool. 3. Click on the edge that you want to join your roof plane to.

Hitting F12 is a lot faster.

Happens to the best of us. By the way... ...just a quick tip, but when you DO need to force an offset in your 2D Block, use an empty Text Box in lieu of actual CAD items in the CAD Block and you'll get a truly invisible item in that 2D Block.

All you need to do for appliances like these is change the Y Offset and Bounding Box Depth to match this dimension...