Kelly_K

Here-here Joey, couldn't have said it better. Back in the 70's when I first started; the VA would not accept plans any other way.

You could also make use of your living area polyline (no transparency) modify to cover just the existing house; copy/paste hold onto your layout or, however you have handled your site plan.

Well if you are going to look into the G600, here are some screen shots of my settings to help you decide. There are a lot of keys to remember, and it can seem overwhelming, but eventually you can get used to everything. If you use keyboard short cuts, it is simply a matter of shifting the hot keys to the mouse. On my main setting I have - open object (cntl+e), undo, esc., line break, amoung others mapped to keys which I find very useful. For the electrical mode I created new hot keys for all the tools like switch (cntl+shift+alt+s), or connection (cntl+shift+alt+c). etc. In the number mode I can use the mouse as a number pad to enter dimensions or I use them as hot keys that I have reordered, e.g. turning on bumping & pushing with 1, joining roof planes 2 ( obviously already existed, but useful nonetheless), Break wall is mapped to 4, Copy/paste hold position 5, etc.

I have been there, with my mx518 and others; although it is corded (I have never been a fan of battery mice). If you like programmable and can get past the inertia of upgrading, and can get used to a cord the G600 is hard to beat. Your settings stay with the mouse, so no need to setup for different machines.

You could also shorten your barge eves, e.g. 24" projection to 12"

I'll take Perry's method. I just do too many jobs that vary greatly from one another. I keep all my details in the library and do the organizing there - like Wall details, Eve details, Roof, Foundation, etc.; then use what I need placed in plan details keeping every thing plan specific that include changes - then send to layout. Occasionally I'll have a job that is somewhat similar to one in the past. That being the case, I will go back and snag the detail sheet and copy it forward to the new plan I am working on. I hadn't thought about plan file bloating, which I suppose could potentially be a problem, it just hasn't been one for me. It has occurred to me to create groups of details and place them into the library e.g. 2 story house details, basement, and so on. For my part I prefer producing annotated sections, which I consider more applicable to the building process. I just don't have a lot of time wrapped up in details. My biggest time hog is the electrical tools.

Barry, I learned cad on a black background and loved it. When I shifted to chief I just couldn't get settings for colors and printing that were acceptable to me. So I tried a light gray background, and for me that ended up being a good compromise. The only difficulty with a grey background is if you send current screen as image, you'll need to check your layout with a white background, and place a border around the image (because the grey background will print) or switch to white (what I do) before you send that image.

Mick I have found if you open multiple jobs and forget to time out what you are working on, the tracker keeps on tracking even though you are outside of that project.

Joe, That is a good point, however it can be done. I am not a structural engineer, but I have a fair enough understanding that I like to test them. As long as there is a compression situation you can substitute beefed up webbing along with lvl or larger dimensional lumber that can take stress of compression. Granted the conditions need to be right; the longer the truss the less likely the above can work.

Room Specification - structure - absolute elevations - stem wall top. Get there by clicking in the room - open object. Or what Lew says.

My upgrade went just fine, lost one of the monitors & sound which was pretty common from what I understand. It was easy to fix - updated video driver & uninstalled sound driver. I use some outdated mouse drivers and settings they all stayed intact. What I have experienced is sometimes when I start chief among other programs (like chrome) they hang, and the task manager will not open to allow me to shut them down. I'm thinking definitely a windows problem. For now I am waiting to see if updates cure the problem.

And I agree with Rob & Robert, I draw trusses for every project I do. Helps me find problems in my design. If I can't get a truss to form or I see framing sticking out of a roof then it's time to investigate. Typically, if I have a question of whether or not a truss can carry a load I will talk to designers or they will call if they have questions or trouble; otherwise I move on to the next project. I do try to detail as much as possible, but I stop at piggy back trusses or caps. Truss mfg. around here have options to pilot car and buy wide load permits or not, hence I allow them to make their own decisions - there can be more than one way to truss a house and I don't get hung up on that as long as nothing changes in the elevations.

What he says. When I do need a new detail I model it. A couple years ago I did a mechanical drawing project in chief just to see if I could, modeling and cad avoidance was my priority. I know there are better platforms to produce what I did, but as I said that was not my goal. For me the moral of the story was to model more and use less cad. X4 Container Drawings - Pg 13.pdf

Definately half-baked. Now to state the ovious, pay attention to intial orientation of what the project looks like in layout, and make your adjustments then if you can; that being said occasionally you just have to rotate, and you do so knowing there will be extra work involved. I assume Glenn's don't rotate plan advice is predicated on the save yourself from the grief of extra work. I have never noticed any deliterious effects in plan from doing so, just lots of text manipulation.

Yep that period is pretty important and that is what I meant. Glad you cleared that up glenn I would hate to mislead anyone, however, it wouldn't have taken long for someone to realize that bad info.

Steve, The best advise I can give is to match the line weights of the old pen plotter days which were millimeters (mm). They ranged from 15mm (thinest line) to 120mm. From here it depends on your own preference. If you want every line to be separated and clearly seen - stay below 25 mm. I personally like bolder lines and am not as concerned about whether there is sheet rock or siding shown on a wall (although I do display them). I am dimensioning to the main framing layer and like it to stand out. Years ago I drew single lines for walls and used a 70mm pen to print them; then switched to 35 mm for dimensions, 25mm for symbols that had a lot of lines.

To flush out this point further, if you don't like using auto refresh such as myself, the auto dimension will delete and replace existing auto dimensions if you leave them alone. Once edited they stay put, which frankly I am glad of.

Yep getting the same error.

Ditto for me too. I was getting pretty disillusioned with the performance of X7 - was seriously thinking of heresy.

Thanks for the advice; actually I can go up to five before performance degrades. The recent file list is too important to me in how I work and too time consuming to stay at that level. I have been opening up a second drawing window and clicking between them - which oddly enough gets focus almost instantaneously.

I would venture a guess of yes. Yesterday I worked on a plan created under X6 and opened with X6. It is ridiculous how much quicker X6 is on my machine, as opposed to X7. I can't live with a recent file list of 5 and under. I know this will sound unwieldy, but I have kept the file lists in all the prior versions of chief - 60 deep to manage a couple of months of construction & questions. All without any deleterious effects on performance until now. I have too many plans embedded in sub-sub-sub-sub... folders. So I am muddling through until a patch that I pray is forthcoming.

Yep, worked for me too. Toyed around a bit and I noticed after 5 files the slowdown begins, that is a far cry from the 60 file setting I had been keeping for all the prior editions of Chief. Sure hope this gets fixed. I like keeping projects separated, folders nested into folders, nested into folders ... and only having to look for a file once when revising or quick access when answering questions over the phone.

I get your analogy Richard, and no question her thinking is crass, but I chalk that up to the innate self-interest we all are afflicted with. I simply reminded her that my charge in this case was by the sq. ft. - not time related. The larger point here is this slowness costing me money? Lets expand on your analogy with the framer having to untie a flap on his bag and retie it each and every time he reaches for a nail; that is what X7 has become.

Absolutely, I see no change and as far raytracing goes it has never been faster for me. I had a customer sitting with me this morning and she commented (unsolicited) on how long it takes switching between tabs, it was kind of embarrassing. Her next question was is this costing me money?

As I said above, it is every aspect, but if you want a specific example lets start with switching between tabs. Open up 2 identical files in X6 and the same ones in X7 and switch back and forth by clicking the tabs. On my machine the switch of X6 files is almost instantaneous. In X7 it takes a second and a half to 2. Now add a layout file - X6 no discernible difference, X7 2 to 3 seconds.