Still Baffled After All These Years...

[glennw]

Johnny,

 

There is no conflict.

Chief is doing exactly what Larry is telling it to do.

Larry is choosing a setting which is not the default and then expecting Chief to build to the default setting.

In his first video, he fails to change the floor structure and thus the foundation doesn't build to the default, it builds to the setting in the room dbx.

In this particular case, it is somewhat complicated by the fact that when the room is deleted and redrawn, Chief is rebuilding the room to the "remembered" settings and not the defaults.

If we had warnings regarding every situation, we would never get any work done.

 

This is complicated stuff, and I think Chief mostly gets it right by giving us as much flexibility as possible for these automated functions.

If you don't want the automation and the complexities it entails, by all means, do it manually.

[lbuttery]

there could  be preference settings for "all those warnings''

 

if you don't want them because you are an expert power user then turn them off

 

some of us would like to have them as "training wheels" until we don't need/want them

 

not every one has a Masters Degree in "Chief"

 

there are a lot of "topic" areas in chief

 

someone may not have ever used a "topic" feature before or for a long time

 

we can't know all and remember all

 

those warnings can at least give a hint as to the issue

 

Lew

[glennw]

Lew,

 

OK.

In the above scenario, could you please tell me how many warnings you would want and where they should be and what they should say.

 

I suspect that you will dodge the request.

But why not spend some time and come back with an answer that may help.

[johnny]

Johnny,

 

There is no conflict.

Chief is doing exactly what Larry is telling it to do.

Larry is choosing a setting which is not the default and then expecting Chief to build to the default setting.

In his first video, he fails to change the floor structure and thus the foundation doesn't build to the default, it builds to the setting in the room dbx.

In this particular case, it is somewhat complicated by the fact that when the room is deleted and redrawn, Chief is rebuilding the room to the "remembered" settings and not the defaults.

If we had warnings regarding every situation, we would never get any work done.

 

This is complicated stuff, and I think Chief mostly gets it right by giving us as much flexibility as possible for these automated functions.

If you don't want the automation and the complexities it entails, by all means, do it manually.

 

It is complicated, but like Larry and others I get hung up on Chief more than any other app - and i've had to learn some very complicated industry apps.  This is a good example where you can have multiple sets of data-entry and have no indicator if a conflict may exist.  I see the logic in having the ability to make room-by-room changes, but adding some sort of alert indicator (like I showed) would be a no-brainier IMO.  Having your whole system based upon the "room" model paradigm means that is a very important aspect to control AND track.

[johnny]

Lew,

 

OK.

In the above scenario, could you please tell me how many warnings you would want and where they should be and what they should say.

 

I suspect that you will dodge the request.

But why not spend some time and come back with an answer that may help.

 

I know its Lew's question but I will answer from my opinion.

 

I would have a simple alert symbol (again, like I showed - simple and unobtrusive) that indicates if any of the "default" settings dont match actual room settings.  If you bring your mouse over it then it could recite the specific alert such as "Rooms have manual settings"...or something more thought out. 

 

Very simple and would help a lot.  If I am not mistaken we've had this discussion before in one of our conferences and I thought the consensus was in general agreement it would be good to have the alerts.

[DavidJames]

On something completely unrelated, what hatch pattern is that you are using for stucco? 

[lbuttery]

Glenn:

 

I don't have time or inclination for such "challenges"

 

you don't have to like my replies

 

I really could care less

 

Lew

[HumbleChief]

This is complicated stuff...

...and I really think this is the point. It is VERY complicated and in my opinion overly so. Probably the price we pay to have a room base model building system but I don't think it's a price we should HAVE to pay. There are many places in Chief where the user interface exposes and reflects that internal complexity instead of masking it and making it easier for the user to understand the underlying paradigms.

 

In the examples within this thread there are 2 very distinct behaviors based upon which plan one uses. The original plan I posted perhaps 'remembers' settings as Glenn suggests and won't build to new defaults unless those default setting are redundantly checked in each room. The profile plan I used in another example does NOT remember settings and simply rebuilds to the new defaults as they are changed.

 

That's not 'complicated' that's inconsistent and unintuitive to a degree that the average user has no real chance of truly understanding how Chief really works.

 

The software programming intellect within the Chief brain trust is to be admired but that intellect should be blended within a user interface that doesn't require the user to possess that same programming intellect. Best example still - when wanting the sun to be directly overhead one must enter the virtually unknowable minus 90 degrees into a dbx instead of a simple graphic showing the sun's location.

 

Love Chief Architect but the user interface can be very very difficult to understand at times and it just doesn't have to be.

[BenPalmer]

I agree with the general premise that there are too many places for different settings and often the 'default' and what is being build conflict and it isn't obvious.  Yes, it is what we are telling chief to do, but the work flow and dbx that Chief employ don't always make it easy to figure that out sometimes.  Sure, once we figure it out, we know for next time.  But, if it was better organized, we wouldn't need to remember, it would be fairly intuitive.

 

For example: The other day I was adding exposed custom rafter tails (which I admit I don't do a lot). Went into the roof framing tab to set up the sizes I wanted and built the framing.  Well, the framing didn't build at all to the numbers I just input.  Come to find out the roof framing is actually following each roof planes setting instead of the framing dialogue settings.  If that is the case, why do I even have the option to change framing settings in the general framing dbx when it won't even use it.  There should be a note or warning or whatever telling me that I need to adjust the roof planes and that changing these numbers will do nothing.  I kept opening the framing dbx and the numbers wouldn't change after closing and reopening the dbx.  So I used the 'edit all roof planes' and changed the framing/structure etc. in there and it all worked and that changed the framing dbx numbers as well.  So those numbers should be greyed out or explained what they are doing. Of course if I did the framing right from the beginning when building the roof, it wouldn't have been an issue, but I changed the style later on.  This may be more obvious to those who do those a lot, but it was not intuitive at all and there are different numbers in different places and it gets hard to figure things out.  I eventually wrote my self a procedure on how to do it so the next time I need to I can follow those steps.

 

Just some thoughts. 

 

PS: I commented on Larry's original post on my issues with foundations that is similar to this, didn't feel necessary to post it again here.

[johnny]

Great comments Ben and Larry.

One thing I want to add to this is I am currently trying to manage 5 users producing 500-1k plans per year using Chief. The first question I was asked by this company is if Chief is the best app for their situation. I recommended staying with Chief, but I hope these sorts of "blind" spots can be fixed so use of a Chief file is not so proprietary to whoever created the plan.

I am full cognizant my situation is unique, but really these issues would be a problem for even 2 people working on the same file....or as Larry shows one person who simple forgot that change was made.