Smn842

For me its the fact I want to make more use of shortcuts in many applications, not just one or two. I have around ten applications with a huge number of existing shortcuts often with 3 or 4 key presses and despite years of using the applications I find I am not using as many shortcuts as I would like because its hard to remember them all (I may not use one of these some for several months). Hence why I am trying a standalone mini keyboard with tactile buttons and LCD images for ease of remembering. When using Chief I find I spend a lot of time with my right hand near my 3D mouse (left hand on normal mouse/keyboard) so can use one finger to select a function with less movement than going back to the keyboard.

Slightly off the core topic but for shortcuts I've recently starting experimenting with a Stream Deck XL as this latest and largest version finally has enough keys (32) to make it generally useful for the software I use. Previously I've used ever more complex key combinations or larger keyboards with more user definable keys. Compared to a small touch screen keyboard it provides tactile feedback which I find helps avoid miss keying and yet with the LCD underneath saves making labels for everything and of course it can still switch icons/functions per application. It's still early days and not fully set it up for Chief but for me seems another step in productivity for some applications. I am left handed but use it right handed next to my 3D Connexion mouse in chief so half the time I barely need to move my right hand to use it. For other apps I find the distance to move for it is still better than the both hand/multiple key press shortcuts some tools use.

I am an not a professional user, but use Chief to assist with my passion for buying and remodelling my homes and gardens in stages and to similarly assist friends and relatives. I fully model the house as built and then use Chief to plan out several years or remodelling. For changes that don't require professionally created plans I provide my plans to the relevant trades (if not doing the work myself) and in other cases they're used as the base to finalise and get approvals. I purchased Chief as the only other tools I was familiar with are general CAD tools such as Revit and in comparison Chief is way more productive for this purpose. When I started using Chief there were some issues with brick and block cavity construction with windows and doors especially (endless gaps to cover due to lack of casing) but some of these have improved over the years. However there are still some annoying issues with doors and windows in this type of construction such as a lack of control for door inset and also window construction in general (I submitted some enhancement requests a couple of years ago). Most of these can be worked around but it does reduce the time otherwise saved of using Chief versus a less specialised product. The symbol library is also heavily based on non European sizes/styles and that adds some work updating symbols and finding new ones where required. For a professional user this is less of an issue but for me with a fewer number of projects this was a pain initially. While this post may sound a little negative, I am still surprised by how many UK professionals in building, kitchen/bathroom fitting etc end up quizzing me about how I produced such detailed and well presented plans and 3D views compared to their software and especially in the time taken.

Windows has supported 32,767 characters path lengths in of the Unicode versions of many file functions from some time when used with a "\\?\" prefix. The reason Microsoft doesn't just switch every function to support that length is due to the way data is often passed between programs and the Windows API as this could cause crashes or issues with older code that assumes the older fixed maximum 260. Therefore its not a problem to write code that works with very long paths (I've had to on many occasions for long network paths) but the challenge is legacy code/third party dlls and other applications not being able to work with such files/folders, although this is improving all the time. More recently Microsoft has a implemented an option for applications to opt in to existing API calls working with longer paths without special prefixes so hopefully we're getting nearer to the time this issue finally goes away. As @Alaskan_Son mentioned this can be worked around by assigning a drive letter to a path, and there's also the option of using the various Windows files system links (junctions/symlinks) to create a new folder say 'C:\CA\Arcs' that in fact points to the existing archive folder and avoid extra drive letters if that is a concern.

Not really. I purchased Chief mostly for remodelling my own home in stages and although you can get away with some minor changes and switch between views/layers it's all too common to get issues due to overlapping objects and Chief's room based approach. These days I always save a base plan and then separate plans for each option. In my case I sometimes update the base plan such as for all new windows, revised heating (moved radiators) and then re-create the options. It's not as time consuming as it might seem. As an aside: My day job is software and one product I worked on had complex data and also needed a way for users to experiment with various options. In the end we offered two approaches: A managed serious of data sets somewhat akin to separate plan files/related data in Chief but with management of them as a whole set of variations with a known base. A way to manually merge certain changes from one variation to another. Over time most people ended up using the first option as the merge feature was very time consuming in practice. This was due to small changes in other data/.objects which meant the merge feature had to ask many annoying questions about how to handle certain issues otherwise the result had objects with broken connections or not as expected. Even with that some manual editing was always required. Ultimately it proved impossible to make the merge significantly quicker to use than copy and paste/ and manual editing hence why users went back to that after trying both, although the merge feature remained useful to highlight changes between versions.

Chief tries to make the minimum size of dialog boxes large enough to show all content but if the screen height and/or font scaling makes that impossible you will get scroll bars. So could be that or a remembered size from use on a smaller monitor (I would expect it to recheck in that event - not tried it)

Windows can utilise spare ram for disk caching so utilisation doesn't always give the full performance picture, however at 50% I doubt you will see any difference and the money spent elsewhere could be more beneficial such as NVMe SSD etc if not already in use. The only other potential benefit for Chief would be a RAM drive for undo storage, although I find some plans benefit more from this versus NVMe SSD than others. Some plans appear more CPU limited cresting the undo file. I use Chief on PCs running 16, 32 and 64GB mostly due use of other software for virtual machines and software development. Generally I find RAM is an area where being short has a huge impact due to paging to disk, but otherwise adding more makes little difference.

There is now a 'Floors and Rooms' section in default settings so perhaps that's an older video not updated for newer releases:

I've not had to pay for it myself so no idea on how the cost stacks up, but I used Zoom at a couple of companies I've worked for and it did everything required and can be used with a browser of dedicated application. The user interface and tools worked well and coped with the myriad of screen sizes and switching to projectors or different monitors without issue. It also has a lot of other features for annotation and white boarding but I didn't use those much.

If you prefer a GUI to do the same, I would recommend this shell extension http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html and there are some others that do the same. It's then just right click on the source folder and select 'Pick Link Source' and then on the target folder right click and "Drop as junction" or symbolic link (there is a difference but for this purpose the result is similar although the latter will prompt for elevation)

I have PCs with a mix of SATA HDDs, SATA SSDs and NVMe SSDs (using motherboard connectors or via PCIe add on cards) If your planned motherboard doesn't have fittings on it directly (odd these days), then a $25 - $35 PCIe card will provide the same. It's only very old motherboards where BIOS support may be an issue.

Given the rest of your spec a firm yes! On my current PC I moved to an NVMe SSD for boot/programs and regular SATA SSD for the 4TB of slower storage. The only place I used HDD these days is on my home servers for CCTV (where HDD is king due to the huge writes) and my backups due to the storage required (10TB+).

That's a good spec, the only thing I would check is to ensure the SSD is NVMe and not SATA as that makes a big difference to SSD performance.

Do you mean the cupola that's on floor level 1, but set to roof height? That shows on the appropriate level of plan view, unless you mean something else?

I use Chief but am not a typical user as I am just an amateur using it to plan the remodelling of my home, however I still decided the cost was worth it for various reasons. My day job is working in software and there are many software applications that are in the several thousand or more USD price range and used all over the world. Just one development tool I use is over $4000 USD and in total I have probably three times that invested in the software I use. The reason that some software costs so much more than others is primarily down to how specialised it is (i.e.is it likely to have a few thousand users or vastly more) and how complex it is to develop and maintain. Developing software is incredibly time consuming and hence costly and that has to be recouped and profit made. I've worked on applications that have hundreds of developer years worth of development time in them and that's a huge cost. In the case of CA, they can sell a cut down version of Chief as a home product hence the low cost of the Home Designer products. That may give them extra revenue and/or a way to get people to upgrade to the professional level products (as in my case).

The various limitations with windows are a real pain, especially for the construction styles we have in Europe. It's impossible to get any where near a correct representations of windows and doors (worse for doors due to no inset control). I wanted to model some options for replacement windows and doors and for the few I could use Chief's windows/doors I still had to fill gaps over cavities and make sills separately and at worst had to make custom symbols. Mulling and un-mulling not leaving the windows the same as before also drives me mad. I submitted a detailed suggestion with examples for my issues a year or two ago so I just wait in hope at each new release.

I have a different experience: I had to have intraocular lens implants due to other eye surgery and its not been a great experience. I avoided multifocal/trifocal/extended depth of focus IOLs due to the loss contrast which is inevitable (same with multifocal contact lenses) and also to reduce the risk of glare and visual effects at night. Sadly, although I have excellent daytime vision when using my glasses or contacts (sharper than I can ever remember) the night time effects are annoying with lots of star bursts and halos around light sources. IOLs can lead to subsequent posterior capsular opacification (sometimes known as secondary cataract) which needs lasering and that can leave debris floating in the vitreous of the eye which is annoying and also more visual effects due to lens pitting. If someone has cataracts or a difficult to correct prescription then there's no choice, but if you check out the two major forums for eye conditions you'll find problems are common. I think its risky unless needed although for some it gives excellent results with mutifocal/extended depth of field IOLs.

I've tried lots of sizes from 3 x 27" to a 43" and also several curved screens. I've come to the conclusion that in addition to the type of use, a lot depends on your vision and especially those of us that are old enough to be presbyopic. As commented above, progressive glasses are not great for screen use and I found the 43" hard work looking around all corners as the focal distance required changes a fair bit. I wear multifocal contact lenses some days and and even though they don't require moving of the head like progressive glasses they still require the brain to adjust which is tiresome even though it happens in a fraction of a second. In comparison using 3 x 27" to 30" screens is much easier for me if the screens are set in an arc as the distance is more consistent. Ideally I would like a very wide, say 50" but reasonable height curved screen but there aren't any.

If that's not zipped you should be okay with if zipped as plans usually compress to around a third of the original size.

When tracking down what makes up the overall surface count I also find using a 3D view and using the total surface shown in the middle of the status bar useful. I then toggle various layers on and off to narrow down troublesome symbols before checking symbol by symbol. I am now more careful when importing symbols but I originally imported a lot of symbols for European fittings and fixtures and its easy for the surface counts to add up.

The end user license agreement in the install (and online here) only permits transfer once approved by Chief Architect after completing the required transfer documents and paying the fee.

Lew is correct. That setting is for holding a lock on the plan file while it is open in Chief which prevents other copies of Chief or other applications from modifying/deleting it. This is the norm for most applications, but I expect the option is there for any rare support issues that arise from holding a file handle on the plan file (possibly some remote file services, poor network connections etc). Even if an application crashes and so skips its normal file closing sequence the operating system will remove such files handles/locks.

You have posted the same question several times and as Windows 10 has the required support for Arabic this is an issue you really need to discuss with Chief Architect support.

It does clean up the files so now problem there. I am an software performance and scaleability engineer for a couple of global companies so do a lot of analysis on such issues down to low level hardware (local drives, bus/network speed, SANs etc) and never said 50 extra files makes a difference. I have 635K files on my boot NVMe SSD drive but use a specific NVMe for temp files/undo for various applications anyway. The core issue here is Chief writes undo files that are too large, too frequently. It's probably crept up on them over the years with larger more complex plans with more detailed symbols so hopefully our various grumbles will get some attention to the core issue.

I agree generating such complex and large undo files is CPU intensive, but with a large enough plan and the double size undo files then disk I/O becomes a major factor in my test. Switching between a fast NVMe SSD and a good HD for undo was very noticeable and painful with 130MB - 200MB undo files (twice plan size). Without profiling in more detail it feels like there isn't too much CPU time streaming out the undo file (with my few of amateur plans at least) but certainly a lot restoring a model which is logical. I don't mind a bit of slowness undoing, but not the impact for every operation and the amount of disk space required is also excessive. Ultimately CA need to reduce the undo file size which reduces all overhead, lets hope they look at this for the next release.