para-CAD

I wonder why such a thing isn't included as a simple tool in chief. So much extra tinkering is often involved.

Search Chief Skills on YouTube. I pasted a link to his channel (Steve) and was given a NO - since the url did not directly link to a specific video. Steve has all kinds of porch related videos to get you past this hurdle.

Are you printing from layout file or from plan file? Are you printing to PDF first, to make sure everything is correct? Then you could send the PDF to your printer for the win.

CA seems very stable now on my MBP (M1Max) The only issue is I operate it in clamshell, connected through a cal digit hub to (2) different resolution monitors; one an ultra widescreen (Dell 34") and the other a 4K 43". Randomly the tool bar icons disappear. If I readjust the width of the tool menu window on the left, some of the tools come back to the top, but not in the same location/order that they were prior to the disappearance. Sometimes I have font issues when working with windows created files. I just make sure I have the main windows fonts installed on my mac. I have no need for real-time ray tracing so apple works fine. I have a 3080 TI in my windows desktop and since I don't get asked to provide 3D for permit, it's not high on my learning list. The studio seems like a beast.......enjoy!

Rene. Wow. I hope you develop a 12 week course on this kind of work. I know you share an awful lot of free content, but a serious training course would be killer. Thanks v/r, Mike

Is the XML option better than CSV for exporting to Excel?

On the more complex truss roofs, I do the work in 2D, for export to layout, as best as I understand how the trusses will probably go.....knowing full well that the truss designer will input the design into his MiTek or whatever software and crank out the actual truss plan...stamped. I've never had to show a 3D view for a truss roof (framing) on any set of plans.

Yes Auto roof works. Start with the center room......make it taller than the side rooms add the side rooms at less taller than the center Set the front and back walls to Gable Roof and balloon set the side walls (4) all to 4:12 or whatever you like Auto build roof

Multi monitor issue also plagues my macOS MBP

I really liked how apples San Francisco family of fonts was extremely clean and easy to read, even more so than Arial. Once I set my default font choice to SF pro, I started having problems between my two machines with the pop-up, asking me to choose a font as a replacement to the one that it couldn't find on my system. Just a subtle change in font caused all kinds of text changes, and often a paragraph of text would become longer or wider, thus causing more time to correct on the layout pages. Now I stick with Arial for everything.

Yes i work on two different machines - same file - no issues unless I choose some font that isn’t present on the other machine.

Hey Big Rob. I feel your pain. I had a client (my best man - so I made it a free job) make so many changes that I went through the alphabet in revision letters and was climbing to revAK (over 35 revisions) Chief started getting really unpredictable. Windows would be gone, roof planes would disconnect...........I had to finally stop. I sent him the exported DWG files and he finished it.

When I framed hotels and apartments in Kentucky in Tennessee, all those plans used control lines. They help to keep the project broke into sections and are excellent for reference lines, unless the guy that is pinning, the slab by GPS, does a poor job. Then the project gets crazy, then you have to have meetings to explain that where he marked the control lines on the slab don’t match where they are drawn on the plans. I found that it is often best on a long, rectangular structure, like a hotel, to get the original cad files and place a control line down the middle in both directions, left right and up down, and dimension from those. Then on the slab when you pop those lines, you can measure out from the center and any of the corrections to the building are made at the exterior, which means about 90% of the walls can be pre-built and assembled on site with minimal corrections to the some of the exterior walls.

Another great video, Steve. Your calm demeanor is a welcome contrast to the cussing inside my head when something doesn’t work as expected. Keep them coming.

It happens randomly for me. I am operating in clamshell mode connected to 2 monitors through a Caldigit TS4. It might be something more specifically chief code for macOS and how the program responds to the differing screen resolutions. I found it occurs almost regularly when I open a 3D cam and then drag that tab to the other monitor to view plan and 3D on two different monitors. But who really knows?

Thickness of your fascia. If you are calculating to the face of sub-fascia or tails, the thickness of the fascia will show up if the elevation is only seeing the outside face of the fascia. Im answering as a framer. I doubt it applies to Chief. ‘We match fascia on actual buildings all the time. Pack up the steeper pitched roofs (taller HAP).

Contact the admin at ContractorTalk. They have a much larger internet exposure and never have this kind of problem.

I used solid builder for whole house panelization back in KY 2004-ish. It has very clunky work flow but the ability to print each wall or each rafter, even plywood sheets - dimensioned was perfect. We would precut an entire home and take it to the site and put it up. Apartments and hotels were a hoot. It becomes more about sequencing and on site material handling. I have SB v24 but I don’t use it. Chief does plans for permit which is what my market wants…..soooo

These are from WEYERHAEUSER

MTS12 or larger. At the wall we would fill the I-joist web with plywood to add strength per vendor literature. LP https://www.weyerhaeuser.com/woodproducts/document-library/document_library_detail/tj-4000/

When I opened a camera to see a practice kitchen (I'm still trying to absorb Rene"s template and tools) the tool bar went poof. I guess I will see if I can set up a copy replace script to run that copies my archived toolbar folder to then be pasted over my corrupted one. Kind of lame but I need to move forward.

Framing is crazy for having many different regional names for things............HAP, heel height, etc. If a plan was to have the facia match at the same elevation (typ), as well as the overhangs be equal all the way around the house (on a bastard roof), we would raise the plate height on the steeper pitch portions. I would CAD the entire roof the night before I started cutting to make sure everything would work. Most plans are not very detailed for production. I still go to this level if I'm framing the roof. If not, I don't include this level of detail because it's confusing to some.

Baseline = HAP? (Height Above Plate) That's how it seems to me.

Update: Ever since the latest Chief update, X14 has been running smoothly on my M1 MAX MBP except for the occasional loss of toolbar icons. The worst was when I was laptop only on the kitchen table in a client's home, when I lost all the toolbar icons. That made doing real-time edits during the presentation much more unprofessional.....but I survived. All in all, chief things are much more stable now on macOS. I've even upgraded to the public beta of Ventura and everything seems solid. I wish every success to you.

I used Chief and an app to take specific screen shots.