Joe_Carrick

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..

Automatic Dimensions don't work for Wall Details. They are specifically designed to be used on Floor Plans and Section/Elevations.

Between Greg and Mark you have exactly what you need. OTOH, Chief should automatically modify the 2D Block. Please everyone make this suggestion. I've asked and asked but I am only one voice.

Jerry, I and many others have requested "Learnable Drop Down Menus" for many items in Chief. It doesn't seem to be something that get's much traction.

No, but you can copy the items you want in the Library to a folder in your User Library. That way it's easy to find the ones you regularly use.

Yes, that's what you need to do in X5 and prior. You really should update to X7 or X8. The capability differences are well worth the cost.

Rashid, X5 doesn't provide saving Wall Types in the Library. That didn't happen until X6.

It won't work in X5, but in X6 and later you can add Wall Definitions to the Library. In X5 you would need to Export it (using the File Menu) and then Import into your Default Plan.