Joe_Carrick

Just create a Layer Set that doesn't display the Building but displays the Terrain. Then use that as a "Reference Layer Set" for Floor 0.

If you put the Chief Data Folder in a common location (Network or Dropbox) everything will be up to date for all systems. OTOH, there could be access conflicts on a Network. Dropbox would be safer since you really have the folder on each system and Dropbox just updates files as it can get clean access. You would IAE need to set that location in Preferences.

That's very reasonable. I have a similar policy about setting up Templates for other users.

It's a matter of menu programming. It's much easier to set the "access/color" of a menu item than is is to create a completely separate menu. Menus and Hotkeys are independent of the current active window within Chief - so the menus are shared but the accessibility of each item is dependent on the active window.

In Preferences>Edit check the box "Show Start and End Indicators"

My macros to display the Table and the Totals will work in Layout because they are accessing the Global variables created by the first one in the Plan. OTOH, I prefer to put them in a CAD Detail Window in the Plan and send that to Layout. It's much cleaner and more reliable.

Scott, "Living Area" is an attribute of Rooms. Rooms (including the phantom room defined for the "Living Area Label") only exist in the Plan, not in the Layout. The Layout is only Sheet Size 2D CAD.

Because it isn't supported in Layout. It's only a function of the Plan. See the Help File (Defaults - Plan - Living Area)

I have a "Living Areas" Macro Package that consists of 3 macros %Living Areas Get Totals% - when placed in the Default Room Label accumulates all Floor Living Areas %Living Areas Table% - placed in a Text Box displays each Floor Living Area and the Total %Living Areas Total% - placed in a Text Box displays the Total Living Area of all Floors This Package is $10.00 usd. Let me know if you want it.

Post the Plan - Please !!!!

Golf is still an individual human undertaking. Sometimes I wish for a Golfing Robot - but I would most likely never be able to beat him.

It wouldn't make any sense for CA to eliminate an attribute that is undoubtedly used by many user text macros. It would PO a lot of users.

Why wouldn't it? That should work in a user Text Macro regardless of the Chief Version. owner.automatic_label is a string. owner.automatic_label[n] simply returns the character at that location.

Larry, My Plan View Labels are in a Rich Text Box in the Plan (custom macro controlled) My Section, Elevation, CAD Details, etc use %view.name% which matches the name in the Project Browser. I use %box.scale% (actually %my_box_scale%) in the Layout Box Labels and just move them to the location I want.

No, there are no defaults for Layout Boxes. OTOH, The %scale% macro in a view sent to Layout will display correctly when the Layout is printed.

Refer to "Help" Search Help for the subject. Ask here - but POST THE PLAN

Boy, we all jumped on that in a hurry

Open the Wall dbx and set the Beam Size in the "Rails" panel. There's a drop-down that allows you to edit each rail. The Beam is considered a rail.

There unfortunately no way to get the lengths of individual edges of Roof Planes. We would need to have those lengths and they would need to be broken down by gutters, hips and ridges. Currently, that data isn't available as Ruby attributes.

See Posts #7 & #11 of this thread. I can customize the table(s) to show just what you want. The macro package is $50 and the tables update dynamically. That's the advantage of a "Live" tool. Or you can export the Materials List to Excel and enter whatever formulas you want. But you'll have to do that every time you make a change.

BT, Your macro only returns the area of a single Roof Plane. That's the simple part. Turning it into a set of tables showing all Roof Planes is another story. Here's an example of the output of my "Roof Area Analysis" macro package. There are actually 3 different versions of the table - depending on what columns you want to display. As I said before, the displayed areas in the columns can easily be modified to be displayed as "squares" instead of sq.ft. if that's desired.

If you mean a "Spiral" then I don't think so. I'm pretty sure CA would have already leaked that if it was going to be in X9. btw, To be anyplace close to a legitimate (legal) Spiral Stair, you need a Symbol created specifically for the height and diameter. I've done some in the past on a custom basis. I can do them fairly quickly ($75 per stair)

Michael, %1%%Electrical Notes% %2%%Electrical Notes% etc. %1% ---> $Note = 1 %2% ---> $Note = 2 %Electrical Notes% uses the value of $Notes as an internal parameter to construct the file name. If you really want to use numerical parameters to branch within a macro, this is IMO the simplest way and it doesn't require CA to do anything. You could even use a String value: %Elect_Notes% ---> $Note_Type = "Electrical Notes" %Framing_Notes% ---> $Note_Type = "Framing Notes" %Elect_Notes%%2%%Notes% ---> Filename "Electrical Note.1" constructed %Notes% But we still need a decent Browser interface for macro organization.

That can be done fairly easily but you would essentially need a separate macro for each file and you would need to know the name of the file you want to get the contents you want. It's probably easier just having separate macros with the notes directly in them.

As Michael said, Ruby macros could be inserted into the notes. But they would not show their content in "Pigeonhole" - instead just showing the macro name. But when copied into the Label of an Object, the macro would execute - thereby showing the macro output. OTOH, It's possible to use "Pigeonhole" as a filing system and copy the note into a Ruby macro - or directly into a Label or Text Box. I'm not sure how much advantage there is to either of the above.