Kelly_K

I draw trusses for every project I do for a couple of reasons: It takes 20 to 30 minutes for simple projects, and sometimes a couple of hours for the more complex. I charge for it so it is not wasted effort. My reasoning is even with the simple projects there intricacies that are useful to be conveyed to a truss designer (vaults, cantilever, parallel chord, midspan support, etc.) For complex projects, one discovers weakness in a model pretty quickly when a truss won't form. Moreover, it allows me to determine location of girders, and complexities that need to be flagged and supported or if I need to get an engineer involved. By developing trusses my error rate has gone way down, and I receive a lot of thanks as well as referrals. Finally, because of a lack of apprenticeship, locally we don't have that many skilled carpenters who could hand-stack a roof, so I take the discharge to help them and my customers get a project built.

My new unnecessarily indispensable tool for editing roof planes

Ditto

Well said & true. To the original poster - using chief for takeoffs can actually work pretty well, but you need to be meticulous, and be familiar with the use of macros. Also you will need to put in the time for set up and maintenance. That said, I personally don't take full advantage because of the time involved, and mainly use it for small projects for spot needs like calculating sq.ft. of roofing, or drywall, or a stud count, etc.

Eric, Thanks for letting us know - I am going to assume they will address it.

Yes this is happening and is definitely a step backwards; at first I thought it was an aberration, but realized after working on a couple of tedious roof jobs where I knew planes should be joining but wouldn't, I can confirm that it is not. My tedium is now amplified, because of having to zoom in and clear out roof plane breaks to join planes - an extra action that I didn't have before. If this is planned change, at least elucidate as to why.

I was speaking satirically, hard to do in print. That said, I used to rotate some of my early work, which would create a lot of extra annotation edit work, scrambling electrical connections, user blocked work, etc. - whenever I would need to reverse a plan (I know it shouldn't matter but it did). Over time I realize the best solution for any work was to use edit area especially early on in a project & more importantly draw everything in landscape. The best recommendation I can make is use rotate plan view sparingly; perhaps as a last resort on one off projects.

Well that is unique way fix the function hide it. Went looking and found it under the plan views, obviously I haven't been there. Just too busy to dig in and decide what I think about saving plan views - seems promising, but so far I am finding the extra tabs to be a mild nuisance.

I believe they have - the rotate plan view is gone in X10

Good discussion -- needs to be turned into a suggestion.

Pretty good advice for everyone to remember. I have on occasion had to bring older files forward; pretty doggone successfully I might add. I plan on keeping X8 well into the future, unless chief can offer something for converting older files.

I remember folks clamoring for this ability, and I can definitely see that there are advantages for reshaping layout windows in a non-rectangular fashion. I know, I have been there. The preferred option to changes such as this, would be a check box to adopt or not. I in particular, just switch to concentric edit now when I go into layout, an extra click which is contrary to what I endeavor which is eliminating clicks not adding. So without the aforementioned option, I guess I would agree that this is a step backward.

Please make the suggestion - I can see that it is needed

... other such nonsense; that kind of hurts my feelings. Not really, when I suggest using 2 mice I can always count on an eye roll. When my clients watch me work they are blown away with the efficiency that I have developed. I copy/paste, open dialog boxes, without moving a cursor, along with being able to scroll in and out with a command selected. I used to be able to cross monitors, tools selected, with ease until the apple version of chief came out. I am not that far behind you in age; if I can learn to use 2 mice then pretty much anyone can.

I have mentioned in the past that I use 2 mice - one for each hand - this situation is one of the many reasons that I learned to do so. My second finger is on my left hand not awkward at all. Moreover, with my scroll set to free wheel, I can move across a screen in and out pretty quickly.

Yes memories - FastCad + 386 with a 387 math coprocessor, and a 12" digitizer tablet worked well for me, until verison 9 of chief. I dabbled with a DataCad license and then a borrowed archicad license, and even bought soft plan; but with chief I was up and running in less than 2 weeks. I've kept looking, under the concept of the greener grass. Frankly, the improvements from version 9 are such that it would not be recognizable to me then, let alone what I could only imagine with version 2.

This method has been suggested many times in the past and is certainly an adequate work around, but at best it is a capitulation to the lack of finesse we should be getting with the electrical tools; that include auto switch change from single, to threeway, or fourway. For me, this functionality is paramount and therefore I refuse to cave.

I have lived with this for years, on my production drawings (plans that are constantly being reworked for new lots), as I have formally stated. Thanks for bringing it up. I think I will submit a plan to tech support to remind them.

We must have better surveyors here I can't remember the last time I wasn't able to get one to close. I am not sure what you are referring to about the automatic labeling not working - sooner or later you got to go south.

Good advice, another useful point with input - is a closed polygon at the end that let's one know the survey was good, and is keyed in properly. I have jurisdictions that kick plot plans out if not properly enumerated.

Very clever Glenn - I love the out of the box thinking, but I think I would take aim at what javatom suggests because you would have better control over the 3 wall type layers.

That is my bread & butter, but don't forget sometimes you need to move timbers (2x) to finalize a truss and that is accomplished with the profile. Also if I want to show a truss cantilever, I'll break the profile polygon (in section) over top of the cantilever wall.

I fully understand and agree, but as I said I have reported and there was a fix just not 100%. I was simply taking an obstreperous approach with you to see if that could make a difference.

The difference for myself in using edit area is I can control the placement on layout better than with reverse plan. Typically, I keep a lot of my ancillary information with my plan file and not in layout. If this is right or wrong I don't know, it is just the habit I have gotten into; when I reverse plan (usually the reverse of an existing plan that has to be sited on a new lot) I have to fuss with changes of orientation on layout, because everything reverses instead of just the house as I used to do with edit area. Dermot, I have reported and your folks generally fixed what was disastrous initially in the release of X9, reverse plan but not the edit area. --- It is pretty simple choose a plan that you have wired and use both ways. With the reverse everything - the switches, outlets, etc. pretty much stay put. Use edit area you'll find switches, smoke dectectors can end up on the other side of the house with wire arcs totally disconnected. Consider this reported to you - Try it.

Alan, As far as I am concerned, reversing electrical with plan, and the deleterious results from doing so is a bug that has only been partially fixed. Started with X9, I prefer to reverse with edit area just like you, but have ended up with the same trouble. Initially it didn't matter reverse command or edit area, the electrical was been getting scrambled. It now works with reverse (but not solidly). I have tried 'all on' layer set and reversing with no luck. I appreciate the work around you devised and will give it a try.