Archnot-Boltz

Because of the dumb way Chief does porch railings that control the ceiling and interfere with the foundation and the ceilings, I'll demarcate my porch roof drawing with the beam framing tool. I always revise and manually edit the auto framing manually . You have to tread carefully if you want to rebuild your framing to account for a floor or roof height change but sometimes I'm so deep into a drawing reframing of a floor or celing has to be done on a piece by piece basis thus many times defeating the time saved by autoframing. I usually leave autoframing on until the project gets pretty much set in stone but have many times gotten ahead of myself and done too much manual too soon. There are some setting to kind of lock it in but this is an area Chief should be focusing on that would make it a much better program. Just like implementing Ortho Locks, which they refuse to do.-BB

requested to follow topic because I have been known to beat a metaphorical dead horse or two!

Have a nice day, also, seems like all the CAD programs are going to the monthly subscription model and eliminating ownership and upgrades. Fortunately, Chief allows us Legacy users to continue Legacying!!-BB

Having good luck with our two i9s with 8 gig NVIDIA rtx's thus far. Just wish we'd gotten the 16 or 17 instead of the 15". My daughter has a 17" i7 Lenova that she's had for five years doing digital arts (3d modeling and game art and is still kicking with only 6 gig NVIDIA GTX). I still wish they put DVD drives in them! bb

Like my co-worker (who now primarily uses Softplan), I was completely underwhelmed by yesterday's X16 features presentation. Kudos for finally giving us snap points on windows and doors, more control on railings and newels but still didn't go far enough. 3d dimensions seem like a decent way to clarify a detail for a builder or client and of course if you're modeling in 3d. Nothing said about being able to make your deck stair railings align with your deck railings, no secondary graspable handrails (see Softplan) etc. Oh, and the corner shelves thing is nice but would rather have my exterior wall intersections improved and ability to lock the intersections and framing. One day I'll get off my brain and make an analog list. Until then, I guess I'll shut up and wait for the beta to download and hope that there are some hidden gems not covered. -bb

I stand corrected. Thanks DB and I'm glad the bears didn't eat you!

My co-worker switched to SP two years ago and thinks that SP is oriented more towards builder details and what it takes to design and draft a set of construction documents. SP (he tells me daily) focuses on fixing things that a builder/designer needs while Chief lets us languish with no Framing for Stairs and Landings. SP gives you automatic joist hanger placement. SP gives you automatic secondary graspable railings that are required by the IRC. and I could go on. From my own perspective and initial use of SP back in 1997 when it was still a DOS program (and the first CAD software that I could wrap my architectural designer head around), SP was a much more mature program than Chief '97 which was 3D Home Architect on steroids and seemed initially, a bit "Mickey Mouse" in comparison. Ultimately, purchasing Chief came down to a better brain to hand interface that felt more like drawing than CAD drafting combined with a great intro price deal of $699.00 (can't remember if more or less) vs about $1900.00 for SP which I couldn't afford in 1998. I've always thought that Chief and Softplan should be bought out by a savy tech company with deep pockets like a Google (except they dropped the ball with Sketchup) and marry SP to Chief and Sketchup and have a badarse baby. But that ain't happening in my lifetime (unless Elon Musk is listening!?). To finish, I'm wondering if X-16 has addressed any of these glaringly missing construction drawing tools that SP has been implementing? Or did we just get another Grand Cabinet Library?! -BB

Is it me or does it seem anything but intuitive to not just be able to create and modify a schedule and have it automatically able to be send to layout? Create CAD Detail from View is a convoluted process by not just sending a PRE-Cropped View and having to delete all the superfluous crap in order to have a clean detail. I had to look up this string on Google in order to remember how to send a schedule to layout. Fortunately, I've been able to do additions and such without schedules but indure the pain everytime I need to include them in my drawings.

Seems like a suggestions request item to me. Maybe it's been addressed in X16! bb

Hey Dermot, I just edited my post, there's no issue with the Mod-Bit roof material pattern but the issue does occur with the CAD lines that I had evidentally drawn manually but forgot.. I couldn't get your phone tech (Devin) to get the same results so I'm sending the plan in with "Attention Devin".- Thanks BB

Ok, here attached is an image of an issue that I occaissionally have and can never figure out why when creating a Line of Text with a Leader line arrow, I sometimes get a second arrow at the change of leader line direction (elbow). This is frustrating when it happens but I figured out the issue today. In my attached image, my roofing material is Modified Bitument and for some reason, the horizontal lines of this material pattern are individually selectable as CAD Lines. (while on the phone with Tech Support, I realized that I must have manually drawn the horizontal lines on my roof elevation view, so there's nothing wierd with the Mod-Bit roof pattern, my Bad) When I try to play a text line with leader arrow (Chief continues to name these "dumb" which is misleading), I get two leader lines with arrows . When I place the same text line with leader arrow in a different space off to the side of the roof, I get the expected result of one arrow. Also in my image, I created a CAD Polygon (I still don't know what a polyline is from my days in geometry class - to me, a polyline would be an un-closed polygon) with horizontal CAD lines 0.25" OC. When I place a line of Text with a leader line and arrow, I get the same issue as I did placing my text object on my roof plane. So, the problem is occurring because Chief's Leader Lines with Arrows are CAD items on a CAD layer and I think they should be Text Items on a Separate Text Layer. When you Underline a section of Text, Chief doesn't treat the underline as a separate CAD Line, so why do it with our Text Leader Lines and Arrows? So, is this a Bug or just a "fringe benefit" of Chief's layering logic? I'm open for the critiques, bring em!!

Ok Chief, I've raised this issue on several occasions and yet, in x15, it's still an issue. Why don't (can't???) you fix this dumb anomaly that's been plaguing (apparently only me because no one else seems to find issue, or care enough to *****, yes, it's now a ***** and will remain that way until addressed). Please see the attached OFFENDING ridge beam. I'm not showing the similar issue with rafter tails because I've posted that image many times and Chief knows what it is. Typically for all instances it's because Chiefs framing clips rafters and ridge beams anytime they cross an exterior wall. That transition has somehow befuddled the development and programing staff for at least a decade. But, hey, thanks for adding a gazillion cabinet manufacturers to the library (your generic cabinets work just dang fine and I wish you would give us a separate library with just smart objects (joist hangers, downspouts, standard in-basement oil tank, generic collumns with sizes based on the column shaft and not the dang column base etc).this is a different non related ***** so please ignore. Thank you for any replies from the company because that's who I've been paying since 1997 with every upgrade and SSA payment.-BB

Hey Chief, back again regarding Temporary Dimensions and their Default settings. Why don't your temp dims locate short walls (see attached). You can only access Temp Dims defaults in the Plan Defaults but not in the Dimensions Defaults where you can set defaults for all dimensions Except Temporary Dimensions, Why wouldn't you include the ability to set Temp Dims in this dbx? This is the most accessible and logical. thanks-BB

Mostly agree.

And thus the reason for this discussion. You just made the OP something that Chief should consider. Too bad you will have to repost it as a NEW Suggestion per the current suggestion "Protocol".