Joe_Carrick

Simonas, Put the attached macro in your Door Labels. Ideally, it should be in the Door Default Label so that new doors will automatically have that Label. BTW, the macro is set to round both the width and height to 2 decimal places. If you don't want any decimal places - just edit the macro so that the round(2) is round(0). Door_RO.zip

It can be done with a custom macro.

My suggestion to satisfy the "Printed Scale" problem is to use a Graphic Scale in the Plan. Then no matter what size the Layout is printed at the scale will always be correct.

It's pretty standard in most Apps. Whatever function/tool you are using - F1 should pop up the help. Chief is very good about that and it's a real great way to get a refresher on how to do something. In fact, with Chief if you select an object and hit F1 - it will bring up a list of possible training videos related to editing objects. You can scroll down thru the help file or click on a training video. Using Chief's built in help and tutorials is very handy.

I don't see anything that shows differences in the Cabinet. Can you post the Symbol so i can check it? I'm talking about changing the "Front". It has long been the case that a Cabinet imported from any other app comes in as a base cabinet with a counter top and no ability to change the front configuration. IOW, you can't add doors or drawers. You can't edit the width of the Face Frame. Essentially the only things you can change are materials and the size and/or existence of the Counter Top.

Jon, Can you now edit the Face Elements like a normal Chief Cabinet? I don't think so.

Amazing what's in the Help File. So many times we forget to check that first.

Scott, Select the Object Eyedropper and the press F1. Read the Help File. It will tell you what you want to know.

Scott, I think you will find that will change all the existing cabinets that have that set as (D) - ie Default.

Defaults ? - the Wrench Icon on the Edit Toolbar Object Painter ? - the Eyedropper Icon with "O" on Top Toolbar Match Properties ? - the Match Properties Icon on the Edit Toolbar These all do different but similar things. You need to explain a little more what you want to do. The "Object Painter" was added in X7.

I can't tell for sure why, but one thing is that they are using 2 different fonts.

Scott, By doing it once (positioning that is) and blocking it it can be added to the library - retaining the definition as a cabinet and a geometric shape. Resizing can be done by selecting and tabbing to the individual components. The biggest advantage to this solution is that it only adds 5 faces to the Plan. Using a Cabinet for the Liner adds a minimum of 24 faces but that could go even higher. Another problem with using a Cabinet as Michael outlined is that you would also need to make it Frameless so that the inside cabinet won't show if there's no Door(s) on the outside cabinet. There is also the depth issue because you wouldn't want the "liner" to cover the Face Frame at top and bottom. It's really just the box that would be "lined".

I found an interesting thing about this. I can block the Cabinet and the Liner together and add it to the Library. When I place it in the Plan I have both already placed together as a block. To resize you have to select & tab but that's pretty simple.

Here is a "Cabinet Liner Symbol". It can be sized and positioned as needed. Generally, it should be: width: Cabinet Width - 1 5/8" height: Cabinet Width - 3 1/4" depth: Cabinet Depth - 1 5/8" Position should be 1" from back of cabinet, centered side to side and top to bottom. Cabinet Liner.calibz

Here's another pic - I just manipulated the PSolid a little to cover the interior sides. The next one uses a open front box symbol positioned inside the cabinet. I just created a 3D Box, exploded it and deleted the front face. Then I converted that to a Symbol. It can be adjusted to any needed size.

If is the key word. In the long run, separate materials for: Face Frame Interior Sides Back Interior Top & Bottom would provide the ultimate flexibility.

Since it is very common to have a different color/material for the Face Frame of Cabinets than the interior - it would be appropriate for there to be a separate material selection for the Face Frame. There was another thread where the "Back Material" was also suggested so that it could be "Transparent". This would be a good thing to put in "Suggestions"

So here's a pic of my solution. The Cabinet, Door, Molding and Shelf materials are all set in the Cabinet dbx. I added a thin PSolid inside the Cabinet (Red) to hide the back interior face of the cabinet. You have to make sure it's far enough away from the wall so the cabinet back isn't in front of the PSolid. If you look closely at the inside right corner of the cabinet you will see that the PSolid doesn't quite cover all of the cabinet back - I was a little sloppy Sorry Scott - no Plan but the pic speaks for itself in this case.

I agree with Scott. Dennis' example is misleading because he used a full overlay door and didn't show a view of the sides or top of the cabinet. If the door wasn't a full overlay you would see the cabinet face as the same material as the interior.

Instead of than turning them off.... Make the text size 1" and it's color white. Also, lock the Layer. That way, it's there if you ever need it (maybe to add a macro) but it doesn't get in the way.

OK, so here's the bottom line: Ruby is a pretty basic programming language. It can perform math operations on numerical data and it can manipulate text data. In addition, it can store and retrieve data in Hash Tables and Arrays as well as read and write to computer files. Programming is just understanding the "syntax" and how conditions are handled. The Ruby Syntax is a little different than some other programming languages but IMO is not much more difficult than "Basic" and much easier than a lot of other languages. Ruby uses what are referred to generally as "methods" but I like to think of as modifiers. Here are some examples of how a text string can be modified by Ruby: x = "My Text String" y = x.length --> 14 x = x.upcase --> "MY TEXT STRING" x = x.downcase --> "my text string" x = x.gsub("my ","") --> "text string" x = x + " is now all lower case" --> "text string is now all lower case" if x.length > 14 y = x.length --> 33 else x = "Something Else" end x.rjust(y) -------> " Something Else" Now is everyone totally confused? It's just a matter of making modifications to data.

Nice Catch Larry

There is also a Chief Global Macro Plan > %Living Area% that can be inserted in any Text Box to display the Living Area of the Current Floor.

A Macro in Chief - basically returns Text to be used in a Label or Text Box. Internally, the macro can do more but what the user sees is the text output. In most cases anything internal to the macro is both invisible to the user and can't be used for anything else. Chief provides some predefined macros which they call GLOBAL & Object Specific. These provide some commonly needed text to be displayed in Labels or Text Boxes. In no case is that data available to use in another macro - it is simply displayed as text. Even User Defined macros don't (usually) provide data that's available to other macros. However, Chief provides some data as object attributes that can be accessed and used to calculate values, manipulate text, etc. That way, additional information can be displayed that is not provided by Chiefs' Global and Object Specific macros. So here's a kicker: Within a Chief Macro, a special type of variable can be defined. This is a Ruby Global Variable which is defined simply by using the "$" as the first character of the variable name. During the same session of Chief any such variable can be used by any macro. IOW, if a macro creates and uses a variable named TotalDecks it is confined internally to that macro and the value is not available to use in any other macro. However, if it creates a variable named ($TotalDecks = 235) then another macro can use it as follows: x = $TotalDecks + 115 resulting in the output of 500 This is a relatively simple example but the key is that the data is available to use between macros, allowing more complex output. It is even possible to access (read and write) information to and from external files, format text, etc.

Greg, It's probably closer to 300 sqft extra siding because you would have to do a 12" height even if you took out the ceiling and didn't add the 8" space between the Floor Joists and the existing Ceiling Joists. But then you would have to redo all the lighting and ceiling finish anyway. The cost is difficult to figure without knowing all the parameters.