Joe_Carrick

Jon, Have you tried displaying a 3D Framing Overview to see which items are creating the problem? It could be that simple.

The X8 Framing Schedule has some problems in how it lists the Nominal Size and Materials. Note that the Nominal Size for Lumber members are listed with the " sign. This is contrary to drafting conventions. ie: 2" X 6" indicates a true size - standard practice would be to use a lower case "x" and actually use 2x6 which indicates the nominal size. Header Material should be FIR FRAMING. The designation of FIR STUD 16" OC is totally silly. Also note that there are a couple of posts listed as COLOR - BRICK instead of STEEL. Due to the complexity of properly listing the actual material we either need to leave that column out of our Framing Schedules or very carefully create and use better names for the materials. Unfortunately Chief automatically assigns some of those materials and the place where they can be edited is not very convenient. Headers for example can only be edited in Wall Details. For the Type Column a ROUND Post could be a Pipe Column or it could be Concrete. Again, due to the complexities Chief either needs to expand the possible Types or add a Description Field that can be used for Framing Members.

Done!

This is a very bad bug. I use the Wall Type name for Labels on Exterior Elevations.

I sent you an email.

Think differently (innovate) A. Top Cabinet is Wall Cabinet B. Shelving on sides are Open Front Cabinets rotated 90 degrees C. Add Freestanding Doors I show it exploded in the pic. btw, This is basically the way it would be built if ordered from any of the cabinet manufacturers. It's just 2 tall cabinets with shelves(no doors), one 24" deep wall cabinet with doors, and a couple of separate doors. Depending on the hinging you might need some additional jamb strips for the tall doors. That's a detail for the cabinet supplier to deal with.

Scott, You have issues. Gerry and I do not. We have some differences of opinion but basically agree. CA has very little desire to provide additional access to Ruby enhancements. I think Gerry and I both believe that with just a little bit more work on CA's part that there would be very little we couldn't do. But there are only a few of us that make suggestions about Ruby and that means CA doesn't rank those requests as very important. The fact that they have their own "Global Macros" with data that can be displayed but that the underlying values (text or numeric) are not available to use in User Macros is to me just another indication that they aren't interested in providing anything extra. They would definitely not want to spend the time to provide any sort of complex area analysis - so I think you can forget that idea.

Gerry, After about 10-15 minutes into the video you showed a Property Area, an Undeveloped Area, a Developed Area and a Building Area. They didn't match up as you were explaining what you had. At that point I quit watching because: 1. I didn't believe your "spread sheet" 2. There was no explanation of the calculations. Please go back and look at those numbers shown in the video and explain. Thanks, Joe ps: I don't think anyone wants to watch a video that starts with 5 minutes of your desktop and just listening to a mono-log without seeing anything actually being done. Then you opened X8 and spent considerable amount of time showing a Plan and some Tables (including primarily the one in question). I - and I believe most Chief Users - don't have the time to listen to you talk without a cogent demonstration of how you do the thing you are talking about. We just don't want to watch over an hour or two for what could be shown in a single 10-15 minute video

I tried to watch Gerry's videos. Unfortunately they are too long and verbose - I just don't have the time to devote to watching for that long. Consequently I don't know what he has or hasn't done. One thing that I did notice was that the first Area Analysis that he showed seemed to have many discrepancies in the displayed values. IAE, the basic principle for using the Polyline Labels is to have a macro (only one is needed if done correctly) that can be assigned to the Label of the Polyline Objects that need to have their areas stored in a Global Variable. Then, as Gerry stated a series of macros can be created to perform the appropriate calculations (add,subtract, multiply, divide) and display the results. Some of those would be: FAR (Floor Area Ratio) Site Coverage Total Building Area (all floors) Total Building Area (per floor - in case there are multiple buildings) Total Impermiable Area etc. By having each Polyline Area "named" (there are a couple of ways to do this) you can simply display the areas with their names, and use the same techniques in the calculation macros. For those who belong to my Macro a Month Club I will provide a set of macros and a SHORT video of how to use this to do any analysis you might need. I will have that done by next Monday, 1/18/2015. I will post the video in this Forum (General Q & A) My apologies Gerry for the Hi-Jack but it seems other users had already done so.

It would be possible if there was Unicode support in Chief's Ruby implementation. Currently, Chief only supports ASCII characters in Ruby Strings. The superscript characters for 0-9 are u2079-u2079 using the Arial Font. The ASCII characters are u0021-u007E. Basically these are all the Characters you can type on the keyboard. Anything above u007F is unavailable.

Considering that this is done with OpenGL using the GPU I woudn't have expecting anything else.

See post #3 in this thread. It needs to be a part of the Door Tool as a Door Type - not a set of static Symbols that have no decent functionality. As I said before, this Library is worthless. It should never have been done as a set of symbols.

IMO the worst possible solution.

These symbols IMNSHO are just about worthless. It would have been far better if Chief had spent the time to allow "bi-fold" doors to have a specified number of panels - or just added a "Folding Window Wall" (aka NanaWall) door type. That way we could have full flexibility to show them Open or Closed as well as being able to directly insert them into a wall with all the other Door features.

Then save the PDF to your Desktop. It will always be available for quick reference and the index and search provide pretty quick access to any topic. Personally, I just select a tool and hit the F1 key for the "Help File". ps: I haven't used a printed reference or help file since X1

Brian, Without your Plan it's difficult to say exactly what's wrong with the Porch. However, there are some dependencies which need to be sequenced to get the best results: 1. Set the Room Types first. 2. Check the Floor Elevations in the Room dbx(s) to make sure everything is correct. 3. Build the Foundation - check that it looks like what you want and make any changes needed 4. Build the Framing. Done in that order everything should be correct. Otherwise, some things may be inconsistent. I like to leave the Framing to as late in the project as possible. In the actual construction #3 & 4 are the first things that happen but in Chief you need to follow the above sequence - or you will have to go back and go thru it again.

Eric's solution will work if you use a Full Wall - but not a "Railing Wall".

I'm not sure either of those solutions will work. Here's what I do: 1. Make the Handrail 5" wide x 54" tall (square/rectangular profile) This will make the handrail look like a solid wall. 2. Set the Newells as 42" tall This sets the top of the "Wall" to 42" above the nosings

Dermot, I appreciate you confirming what I said in Posts #14 & #15.

IAE, The problem is that the hole is only cut in the Counter Top. With a small cabinet the Counter Top is only as wide as the Cabinet unless you create a Custom Counter Top and stretch it to cover multiple Cabinets.

Adjust the front face elements of the wide cabinet by using the dbx. You can split the elements using "Split Vertical" Another way that works is to create a Custom Cabinet Top wide enough for the sink. You might have to adjust the sink location after inserting it in the custom top.

There are many good techniques shown in the videos. OTOH, these videos were done after the design had been completed previously. As a result, the dimensions and design decisions (floor plan layout including doors, windows, cabinets, etc) were already known and that made it much easier and faster to replicate the design in Chief. It's much more common to be starting almost from nothing but a general idea. As a result, there is often a lot of manipulating the wall locations, doors, windows,etc. I work with a very different set of procedures, often going thru several Plan versions before getting a finished project. I almost never know the exact length of a wall while doing the exterior layout. It's more a matter of knowing the basic shape (which will almost inevitably change) and then manipulating room sizes.

Brian, You can as Michael suggests "Lock the Existing" but you can't select anything that's locked. It's best to just be careful.

4" right of the center of the symbol. x=0 means the center. The origin of most symbols is "center, back, bottom".

x= 0 will set a "Stretch Plane" at that location so that the symbol will only stretch at that exact location. You don't actually need a "Stretch Zone" for the x direction in this case, a "Stretch Plane" is sufficient..