Archnot-Boltz

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

1 minute ago, Dermot said:

Please post this plan along with detailed steps for exactly how you are trying to draw the text with leader line and someone here will be more than happy to look into this.

 

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

13 hours ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

...but then I think it would largely defeat the purpose.  Anyway, here's my take:

 

I don't care that they changed it.  The bounding box caused me at least as many problems as it solved.  It didn't allow snapping to or measuring to the actual tank or bowl, it precluded easy placement of items that encroached into the bounding box area even f they weren't technically a code issue, they made it a pain to position toilets in as-built or other non-code compliant situations, they made it impossible to resize the toilet geometry to any degree of accuracy, AND they were barely even useful for their intended purpose since I pretty much never design to the minimum anyway (I still ended up needing to reposition the toilet regardless). 

 

Yes, they helped make sure I maintained the code minimum, but that's something I constantly need to keep track of and verify anyway, especially considering I'm commonly overriding the bounding box for the placement of various objects either way. 

Mostly agree.

14 hours ago, TeaTime said:

 

 

 

Now that being said I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who didn't agree that snapping could be a little more intelligent at times, so I'm right with you there. If the bounding box only acted as a snap and did not block other objects from being placed, or even for the object itself to be placed - this would be a non-issue for everyone. Nailed It, Great Embellishment of the OP's Suggestion and my follow up

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".

15 minutes ago, TeaTime said:

This seems a mountains out of mole hills complaint to me. The program holds our hands at times, but not all those times are necessary.

In this instance, there are times were a library object simply wouldn't go where it needs to go. Furthermore, the extended bounding box around toilets also interfered with placing any other object around it - I personally like being able to place a toilet paper holder within a reasonable distance of the toilet.

 

It's just a trade-off, we're either able to easily place toilets but not easily place other objects around them, or we have to do some manual measuring to place toilets but have full freedom around it. Why can't we have our cake and eat it too? Toggle Bounding Box ON/OFF. 

 

In my years I've come to learn there's a middle ground to be found here. If you don't help enough then you don't serve much of a purpose, but help too much and you've become a hinderance. 

It's all about options. Why would you go from having to do nothing to now having to create another dang library item to find? Bounding Box on by default and then Toggle off to install  TP Holders etc. Or how about the Bounding Box have enough intelligence to snap to the finish wall surface and ignore the  TP holders etc? Just stating opinion regarding the OP, not doing battle. OP is a constructive suggestion.

53 minutes ago, A-H_Ryan said:

Chief turned off this feature stating that it was preventing people from placing toilets.  Now you have to go and manually create your own bounding box and save it in your library.  Total mistake move in my opinion, chief needs to stop creating more work in a program designed to save us time.

Plus One. Chief has been known to take away functions thinking they made something better. In lieu of taking away a user friendly function or feature, how about an On/Off toggle and keeping the original function as the Out of the Box Default. Case in Point (see attached). In this example Chief did the Right Thing (thank you) and gave us a Toggle Option. Unfortunately they did it backwards when they released X15 and made it Wrong (or different?) Out of the Box by Default. Had to call phone support and Ask WTF? They did the same backwards Default thing in X14 when they by default Turned of the Manual Roof Intersection Points and you had to find the setting to turn them back on in order to properly intersect roof planes manually because they thought or wanted users to use the automatic roof creation tool more.

Very Nice Mark, but it would still be nice to have in the door tools and not have to do the work a round.

How about making it a request.? All the programmers would have to do is modify a bi-fold and rotate it 90 degrees.

On 3/23/2023 at 1:07 PM, VHampton said:

Same... right up until a recent project. It feels strange in having to use that input.

 

Sears and Roebuck is the where the term was "master suite" was coined from. 

 

Big Ass Bed Room sounds much better, but since "primary" is the new norm. ok. lol 

 

 

We already have Big Ass Fans in our library (i think).

On 3/23/2023 at 12:01 PM, Alaskan_Son said:

Pretty sure Chief was just doing some housecleaning and decided to do away with some of the redundant room types that were just making an already long list a little shorter and less cluttered.  If we want any of those additional room types in our template plan(s), it can seriously be done in far less time than what I'm sure it took you to write up your post. 

Easier to delete than to create. Plus Chief's names have drawing intelligence built in.

Good points. 

Not a hijack, just embellishments to the OP.

I'm complaining about a lack of consistency and expectations here. From the get-go, I never understood why the North Arrow Pointer was a CAD item, but it always was and now it ain't! At the very least, because of the change it should have appeared with the Sun Arrow in a separate area of the menu by defauld. Instead, you have to search it out, find it and then drag to a random spot in your menu.

On 3/24/2023 at 10:49 AM, amddrafting said:

I think they more or less achieved this by giving us the "retain roof" option so you can manually draw a roof plane and then turn autoroofs back on and force it to work with your roof plane.  Auto roofs always get me close enough and I manually draw to finish it up, it's what I have done for years, just never seen it act like this with such a simple change to the ceiling heights.

Usually, when doing porch additions etc, I just work backwards and raise my beams to create the proper birdsmouth. I use cad lines and the elevation marker tool which shows the absolute elevation in section or elevation views. In the case of the porch roof not framing to a 10 ft raised porch ceiling, I would then just Raise the Offending roof planes 12" and then manually reframe each roof plane. This back and forth bs by having to create and recreate different false ceiling hgts is a crap way of doing business (which you have to do when creating knee walls in attic rooms for example).

Ok, now we're in x15. Did we gain the ability to selectively remove a curb edge? Thus far, I'm  struggling with the new library browser and trying to remove a curb at a 4 way curbed street intersection. Plus One to the OP and I'm now requesting that x15's inadequacy in this department be improved in x16.

Dear Chief,

please let me know why I shouldn't be requesting that the North Arrow (and probably the Sun Angle Arrow) be added back to the CAD Tool Pallet. See attached illustration.

I was able to add the tool to my Child Pulldown (icons) bar and place it beside the CAD Line Tool but would maybe prefer the option to have it back in the pallet. Maybe it's better where I have it now because it's more obvious but a head scratcher to find at first and I don't recall any documentation on on how best to use it other than to look for it under the regular CAD pulldown word menu.

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

This is why we need the ability to specify individual bearing heights with walls or cad (bearing line) lines. 

10 hours ago, buzzsaw204 said:

How about Room Name Label in Section View!!!!!!

Would be a great Option. Plus 3 to add to the OP.

17 hours ago, DRAWZILLA said:

And for all remodelers out there I have to put a (e) or (n) in front of all those rooms. sure would be great if it was a checkmark instead of changing every one and having two of each.

 

And your amendment or commentary to the OP is a logical improvement. Plus Two (2)

4 hours ago, Gawdzira said:

The only room names that matter: Kitchen, Ballroom, Conservatory, Billiard Room, Library, Study, Hall, Lounge and Dining Room

Where do your clients poop!? In the corner pocket?