DzinEye

No, but I've considered getting a few more fingers added to my left hand.

Good Morning Glenn, I was kinda saying that, but my meaning was that if we were required to use a true <Enter> to initiate a command (not a part of the hot-key combo), then we could use the same key once, twice, thrice etc. all together in any given hot-key setup. Right... totally agree with this and for the most part this is what I've done. There's just a few issues... like I wouldn't use L or I as hot-keys as you have because I have to take my hand off the mouse or move my left hand from the home-keys to do it. This means ideally I want all my hot-keys to be reachable from my left hand without looking at the keyboard to move my hand from the home-keys. Thus, to get more use from just the left side of the keyboard I'd like to be able to use the single key hot keys as well as the multiple key hot keys of the same key. Anywhoo... I've gotten a workable system down that probably uses a few more triple hot-key combo's than you have but it works.

I'll be darned... didn't know this! @solverBlue Mist?... sounds like you painted your Fascia with mouthwash

Ya... after I wrote you and Glenn I re-read your statement and it was clear you were saying what I'm trying to say. I think it was that you re-pasted Glenn's statement in BOLD that threw me off... I thought you were saying that. LOL... too funny... I actually looked to see what Australia-time was right after I typed and realized I probably wouldn't be hearing back for a while!

Nice video as always Steve. Nothing at all to disparage the other video makers here, they're all great, but yours are definitely the cream of the crop. Definitely not having to search for an icon to click-on for everything is a huge time-saver.

@glennw Thanks for advocating for this! It's always been an option since I became a Chiefer... but I'd of been miserable without combo's being an option.

Hey Glenn... I had no idea you had responded... and now I see a whole load of other responses too. @dshall also responded with what I 'think' is supporting what I am saying, but sorry Scott, I'm not quite sure! My understanding and my point is simply this: I can make a hot key combo like "SSS".... but if I have that, I cannot ALSO have "SS" or just "S" as hot-keys... or vice-versa. Please of course correct me if I am wrong, because I would love to be wrong in this case! BTW...for select I use Shift-S ... but 99% of the time Escape (spacebar) gets me back to select when I want it.

Agree with the above thoughts, but also you could try the universal PBR band-aid... turn the sun off or way way down

Thanks Glenn. For a quick second you gave me a good chuckle as I thought how dumb am I !!!... but it's not quite the same as what I'm getting at: If a true <Enter> were needed to initiate a command, (whether or not I had Spacebar mapped to be the <Enter> key) then I could use "A" as a hot-key, but also "AA", "AAA", "AAB", "AAC", "ABB" etc... just loads more hot key combo's become available that make it much easier to create key patterns that have a relationship to the actual command name or function and are easy to remember. I've managed okay with what we have... but I still really do miss that ability. I actually did do something similar to your suggestion though, I added the Shift key to my hot-keys....which is essentially replacing the Spacebar in your suggestion. The reason I don't use the Spacebar per your suggestion is that early-on I mapped it to be my Escape key! I never ventured to using Ctrl or Alt keys, as I cannot reach those reliably or quickly enough without looking and feeling like I'm uncomfortably contorting my hand.

I've done the same as far as keeping nearly all hot keys reachable with my left hand in home position on the keyboard. From the wish it were like AutoCad dept.... with hot-keys, I often wish it were like AutoCad where you have to 'Enter' (for which I used the spacebar) to input any typed command... thereby allowing single letters to work as hot-keys and still allowing those letters to be used in other multi-key hot-key combinations. I lost 15-20 single key hot-keys because of that disability.

I think you're taking that more harshly than it was meant. If I recall correctly, I'm pretty sure Joey came from AutoCad once upon a time too. If you go back in the forum pretty much everyone who comes from AutoCad, myself included, asks why can't this or that or the other work like AutoCad. I think it just gets tiring to those who've finally moved on. I confess that 90% of the things I wished were like what I was used to in AutoCad I finally got used to doing differently in Chief and now I just shrug it off... but there are still quite few things in the CAD department that Chief needs to improve.

@ChiefHarrell I hope you find some good inspiration from Gene there, but if in the mean-time you just want to print per your usual way and move on for now, here's what the Print dialogue box looks like in the current X12 version of Chief... I have no idea what it looked like in Version 9, but you may be able to garner enough info from this screenshot to get it to print to scale from your plan view. If your dialogue box looks nothing like this and you don't have the option to change the scale and paper size per the screenshot below, you will either need to set up a layout per the comments above. ( Ideally you should anyway)... or if worse comes to worse you can print your normal way you usually do on 8.5 x 11 paper but add a long line just below the floor plan that is a nice even length, let's say 40' long. Then, if you want the plan printed at 1/4" = 1'-0" scale tell the print shop to print your PDF on 24"x36" paper so that the line measures 10" long when printed. They should be able to do the calculation.

@ChiefHarrellDo you usually print from a Layout or from a plan file ?

Pretty trick Graham

The super-users may have a better input on this, but I believe the potential advantage is the same as using wall types from the library vs. the wall tool... it just gives you a broader range of different door types... (or wall types.. etc)... without having to open the door tool (wall tool, etc) to select a different default door type.

Steve, I'm sure you'll find a way to get done what you're asking, but just throwing this out there... if once you name a file it's name/code # you use never changes, then you might consider simply copying the job# part of your file name and pasting it into the relevant part of the title block on Page 0 of your plans, where it will automatically populate every page of your plans.

Perfect for your clients Aristotle and Socrates! It does sound more official... who wants lintel when they can have architrave! Sold

All good points Robert. Architraves... ha!...nice! I haven't used that term since architecture school! I thought that was just part of an entablature? Man, you're going to get me digging out my old school books. Sounds like you're saying ... form and function follows framer?

Yep, that's another good one to have on an easy hot-key arrangement. Dermot's suggestion to turn on 'ignore casing' is another good one (in my opinion)... unless you are specifically going to be specifying casing material and care whether it's clipped.

You stated the answer yourself

I share your sentiments here on a daily/weekly basis. Yes, the relatively easy 3D is wonderful... and if they don't continually improve that aspect they'll fall behind competitors with the eye-candy, but the real world still requires cad and it's just as important as the 3D. The offset one really nags me the most. A real 'offset' command has been requested before, and I've been planning to add my own request for it again recently. Having to go into preferences to set a 'jump' behavior when a specific offset is desired on anything other than an orthogonal move/copy is mind-numbingly ridiculous. For a polyline you have to grab from a corner grip in-order to offset uniformly so you can't input an orthogonal distance... unless you can do the square root in your head you have to set the jump behavior. Not sure I follow you on the Copy & Paste and endless mouse clicks though? I take it you're not using hot-keys? Some will not recommend re-doing Chiefs hot-keys, but I had a whole hot-key system from AutoCad that I did my best to re-use with Chief. I use C,C for Copy and V,V for paste-hold position

Thanks Glenn... ya, Eric set me straight a bit earlier. I've seen the wall Defaults dbx a million times, but for some reason when I think of setting a layer I want to do it from the wall definition where it's not an option. Wondering why? Glad I got that basic bit of info straightened out though. Something I gave up on early on and never looked back.

Thank you Eric. Uhghhh....what a dummy I am. So aggravating....of course... I've seen it there a zillion times, but never when I've thought about it in terms of assigning their own layer... I've always looked at the Wall Definition. Why is layer assignment not available on a wall type basis from the Wall Definition? Seems like it should be.

Interesting. I'd thought about doing this way back in the first several months after I learned the basics of Chief... as that is what I was doing in AutoCad prior. I did not (and still do not) see a way to have those wall types automatically go onto a user defined layer. Am I missing something? It's not a huge job to manually do it, but it invites problems cropping up.

Very good of you to do the video Eric. At the very least you showed several good ways of doing different things. In this case, Robert %Robdyck wins the prize though. Simply provide two differently named rail types for the short rail type and tall (screen room) rail type and it works charm. I just copied and re-named the copies Bruce_Rail_Short and Bruce_Rail_Tall and all is well. Bruce Deck Project_R1.plan Tried to tag Robert... how do you do tags??