para-CAD

I’m a solo designer and I’m not sure if when I would collaborate with someone, using project management, if I had a custom high-speed $$$ template that I had bought from someone, would that all get wrapped up in the .caproj file (zip) or not. I would hate to collaborate with someone, and inadvertently they would get a template that they should rightly purchase. from the original template builder. It would depend on how proprietary the information is and what it might do if it got shared around too much. I can’t really imagine a way around that issue when collaborating.

I'm typically not a good example of a safe use case because I've been using the public beta of Chief Architect X18 and the public beta of Mac OS Golden Gate, and everything is working fine.

6 seconds to load to the dashboard 6 seconds to have a layout opened from the Recent Files list. 1 second to double click a layout "view port" and have the referenced plan file open to the saved plan view. 7 seconds to update the core catalog files M4 Max MBP macOS 27 Golden Gate Public Beta

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/odr9hspgyukm500sv8bzo/issue_with_FOOTINGS.caproj?rlkey=jddp9fzkhybugrmcp8an829de&dl=0 The Dropbox link has the .caproj file. My issue is I like to draw a footing plan and this is the first time that I've had it have gaps along the outside of the footings on all four sides. I am curious as to what configuration I have changed to cause this to happen. I'm looking forward to having the experts review this plan and educate me. Thanks in advance.

It sounds like you’re trying to figure out how to get chief architect for cheaper than what they lease it for. The people who work for chief need to make a living so that they can continue to provide an excellent product for us people to design houses with. Do you allow your clients to manipulate your pricing model when you’re working for them ? X 18 is much improved over previous versions. Instead of posting on this site, it may have been better for you just to directly ask chief off-line because now they know your possible intentions.

My details are all in CAD details in my plan template and are then referenced to the layout. The only downside is that I use notes quite a bit, and you CAN'T block your CAD work with a schedule then to put it into your user library.

I was told something by a guy who is an expert at using chief. He says he has finally developed a workflow where he lets chief place the deck framing and then he “explodes” everything and manually puts it the way he wants.

This is coming straight from memory, so it may be incorrect, but I remember having to export to a .stl file and then import that into Chief back then.

This sounds like an excellent suggestion. Maybe Chief can make it so that individual rows and columns can have unique spacing.

Is it causing issues if you just drag it far enough away from the model so that it is not viewable when you send that saved plant view to layout?

For me, the engineers that I work with typically want the plan view and maybe an elevation or section if needed. I use saved plan views of each floor plan and foundation and export them to DWG individually. If you have a DWG viewer, it’s always nice to open your exported DWG to make sure that it’s not confusing or has things That might make it difficult for your engineer

This might be cool. The Project Information feature in the layout file is an independent project information tool as compared to the Project Information tool in the plan file. This opens up all kinds of interesting things beyond where I can even think they might be useful knowing that I could have layout-specific project information versus plan-specific project information and since we can create our own fields, this can be extremely powerful.

18 is great. Jump in.

I had a video on YouTube and once the tech guys at Chief saw it, I deleted it

I'm going to screen record this as a baseline because it only happens in Chief and it only happens when I want to grab a grip and move it. And it's about 50% of the time that it doesn't grab and I end up dragging the mouse cursor to where I want it and nothing comes, but then it opens up the dialog box. So, give me a few minutes. And it's only x18, so there is a difference between 17 and 18.