CARMELHILL

This is off topic from CA, but I couldn't find the chat room portion of the site. Maybe it was removed... I am licensed in NY, NJ, CT, and now Florida but all my work is in NY, specifically Long Island. 90% residential and 10% commercial. It took 5 years to get going on my own and been going strong since 2001. The crash of 2009 was tough but I got through it. Every winter I get the itch to open an office in Florida. Long Island is mostly renovations with the odd new house on the eastern tip in the Hamptons. I despise the my busy season coincides with summer. Every May and June people suddenly realize they want a building permit in 3 weeks to start a project. Good luck with that. Does anyone on the list have any advice about a move south? Am I dreaming? I have 2 six year olds, so I still want to be self employed so I can make my own hours and enjoy watching my family grow up. Working in a office tower in Tampa would NOT be an upgrade in my life. My wife might pick up a small part time job to help out. Are wages extremely lower than New York? Is the cost of living proportionately lower? I know there is no state income tax but you still have fed tax and flood insurance. I am also considering commuting back an forth between NY and a condo in Florida to get things rolling. So fill me in. I'm centering my search on the Tampa, Lido Key, Bradenton area and wouldn't mind a mentor from a neighboring area (love the Jupiter Beach area), even if it means signing a non-compete advisory contract.

I posted a comment in the suggestion forums about also getting a potential keynote manager to work with details too. Not just plans and elevations. Please navigate to the topic and give it an endorsement. https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/index.php?/topic/9816-keynote-manager-for-details-too-please/

Understood. I sometimes wonder how much TRUE input or influence we have on the programming direction of Chief. Just frustrated. Really don't want a second program in my office for commercial work. I don't want VW or AUTOCAD back in my office. We all previously discussed getting some other basic commercial tools like electrical symbols that self correct their display scale from 1/4" to 1/8". A real key note manager instead of juryrigging a plant list that has no preview ability, Backwards editable door and window schedules where you can edit the actual schedule and it will update the plan symbol.,etc.. Just need some basic tools.

But you have to get it right the first time. Add lights, add smokes, add sprinkler heads, and then find out the layout isn't optimal......start over. Trim, extend, blah, blah. I want that ceiling tool that Vectorworks has had since 2010. Six freakin years ago they were way ahead of us on something soooo basic.

Aghh. Right now I drawa room poly, Add some lines, center them in the room, extend to polyline, add some cross tees on another layer, extend them to poly. Someone mentioned using a gridded material fill but that only works if it's a continuous grid for the entire floor. But this si for a doctors office with partitions 6" above the ceiling. Each ceiling gird needs to be centered in it's own room. Aggravation at it's most extreme.

Here's the video of VW that I think would be an easy tool from Chief. It's fully adjustable and snappable, allowing placement of fixtures. Comments? <iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tkoUSPTTaBk"frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Another problem with this idea is that the hatch lines are not snappable. You can insert a light fixture into the grid accurately. Once in a while we don't need to render the crap out of projects. Sometimes an "old school" 2d line tool with be best, like now. Tomorrow morning I'll screencast the ceiling tool from by 2012 version of Vectorworks and upload it here and to the suggestions area. It would be really nice if they gave use small package of commercial tools. Check back tomorrow afternoon.

Google is very soon (this summer supposedly) going to make all their android apps accessible from 2015 and newer chromebooks. There's your solution. An Asus Flip would be handy for a meeting at only $229 at Bestbuy.

I absolutely don't want to use just lines. The second you adjust the grid you then have to start trimming and extending. That woulnt easily work for rooms with alcoves. Yes for simple rectangle or square rooms. But nothing else. VW had a great tool, I need to find a video or get out the old program and screencast it. You draw a polygon, fill it with a pattern, then adjust the size and offset of the pattern. It self corrects the line extents. You can also spedify the origin point of the grid within the polygon. And its all snappable. Awesome and super easy. No silly work arounds.

Does anyone have an easy way to make/use an easy simple 2d ceiling grid that is you can snap to (not a material or pattern which cannot snap) and easy to adjust....move the grid within the room to get better ceiling tile layout without doing crazy trimming. Back in 2011 when I was using Vectorworks they had a great tool.

The window schedule shows the 3D Exterior Elevation with the window shutters. Something weird is happening on one project where, even though all the windows have shutters, only one is illustrating with shutters on the schedule. Anyone know if there is a way to shut off all the shutters in the window schedule? I don't really think it needs to be on there. I think they still show up if you pick the 3D Interior Elevation too. I don't want to remove shutters from every single window in the project because that will screw up my exterior house elevations. Then I'd have to go add individual shutters from the library. See attached.

I need to verify with others here.... If I move my label in one elevation, is it moving in the other elevations as well? If so, that stinks. I thought all the labels in different views moved independently. But it looks to me that they all move together. That means you have to coordinate their placement. HASSLE. I am still torn if this is really worth it. It's almost easier to just do a text box with bulleted numbers and use the callout tool to place those numbers all over the plan and elevations.

Funny this topic came up...yesterday I accidentally had the same layout file opened twice in the same instance of Chief. I don't know how. I freaked because I didn't want to lose my work so I closed it ASAP. And yes, I am positive. Glitch I've never seen before.

Is it included in the X9 version in your signature? I was trying to figure that one out today.

It's called marketing, or fluff. Show them how the program "can" be, but in true everyday use, it falls short. Off topic, but why can't the materials list self regenerate after a change? Why do you have to manually force it to recalculate. Shouldn't that be easy stupid to program? Why can't we reverse edit schedules, like door and window settings in the schedules that will then revise the respective items in the floor plan. Cheez, Vectoworks had that in 2011. I see improvements in the program from each release, but I haven't yet seen anything that is a total game changer to me. This probably falls into a BIM or Ruby topic, but imagine how great it would be if every single item could have a record or label that we could turn on and off for plan views, elevations, and sections? Imagine generating your elevation and keynotes with a schedule pop up for corners board, siding, roofing, etc.. In plan view your foundation slab, walls, footings, etc. would be labeled already. But then again, imagine I won Powerball.

-Plant labels have 2 very useful characteristics... 1. If the rotate handle is moved while in plan view so that it is perpendicular with any given camera view it will disappear in that view. This is one of the useful ways to hide the label in unwanted views. 2. If the label is moved away from the symbol (like with the place holder room technique) it is only moved in that one camera view. -Due to fact number 2 above, all you really have to do is create an extra floor or series of floors, set your schedule to display only objects from the desired floor, drop the note symbol in front of your camera (in plan view) and then drag the label down in elevation view. Thanks for these two tips. That was a huge help alone. Now I understand why I was having so much trouble last night. The rotate handle is a huge help.

I spent all night till 4am playing with this idea and then all day today using it on a project. It has potential but there are so many glitches. Works great in plan view. But it's not easy, or even possible, to insert the plant symbols in elevation. So you have to insert in plan, then go to elevation, attempt to find the label, see if you can move it, then check other elevation views to ensure they aren't conflicting or just hide that label in that view. What a hassle. I would definitely use this in my commercial floor plans but I dont think its useable for sections and elevations. Alaska, cannu share a video of how u use it in elevation and section. Your placecard holding invisible rooms were genius. I forgot u could set a schedule to only report from a specific room. Question... is there a 2D symbol that can be used like this so I dont have to worry about the label showing up in the wrong plane or in different elevation views?

I don't know why, but after I save the plants to my user catalog, when I reinsert them into the plan for placement, I lose the ability to separately move it's label from the plan symbol itself. Edit, I think I figured it out. When I selected the plant to save into the User Catalog, I don't think I window selected the plant AND it's label. Shoot. Now I have to do all my keynotes all over again.

I hate all these silly work arounds. Chief.....GIVE US REAL KEYNOTES.

Wow, this brings back memories. I jumped ship from Vectorworks back in 2011 or 2012? I've never understood something related to your first question....why can't we select the Current CAD layer we want to draw on from the ACTIVE LAYER DISPLAY OPTIONS box which is on the right side if the screen? See my attachment. How freakin easy would it be for Chief to add a little check mark "Make Current Layer". Seems sillystupid easy.

Chief released an update last night. It has not addressed the text reformatting issue. On the attached screenshot you can see "Attics without storage" wraps to the next line when I've already got Auto Height and Auto Width selected (HT. wraps to next line). But even more weird is that the end of some sentences disappear completely....see GUARDRAILS AND........the word "HANDRAILS" is missing. It's still in the text dialogue box, but it disappears from view. Not a weird wrap. It disappears COMPLETELY. I can't possibly go through an entire set of drawings and ALL my details to verify this isn't happening on a daily basis. Back to tech support.

Still, I wish Chief set something up like Vectorworks. They had this way back in 2009. Look at their video from an update in 2010.... This shows how their keynotes work. This shows the actual manager module.. I'm going to post this to the Chief wishlist forum. I think it's about time.

This doesn't work for elevations and sections, correct? Only in floor plan views where plants can be used. I love keynotes but this technique is too limited. I wish CA would get on the ball and give us a true Keynote Manager.

I have had his exact problem. It only has been an issue in X8. The last few words of a sentence keep disappearing. I emailed it to tech support and they said they could not replicate it. Obviously other people here have. And I use Arial font exclusively because its clear and easy to read on plans. They need to fix this.

I've been using Strucalc for over 10 years. Can anyone recommend anything else? Or a supplement. I am looking for something that does a little more, like basic steel moment connections for those projects that don't have enough exposed wall for shearwalls. Concrete grade beams would be nice too. Is there anything that does steel reinf concrete, like columns, beams, and lintels. Would love a helical pier design program. I hate integrating an engineer into a project unless I have to. We've done all our engineering in-house but I'm starting find the need for more intense items. Thank you for your 2 cents. This will probably get moved into the chat room section.