Old Template Plan Warning...

[johnny]

Dermot,

 

I know this has been asked for many times, but would it be possible to have "User Defined Room Types"?  Naturally, these would have their own "Defaults" such as floor finish, moldings, etc.  As you know, only a select group of Room Types can have specific floor finishes and all rooms inherit their moldings from the "Floor Defaults".

 

Since Rooms are such an integral part of Chief, it would be much easier if we could set the defaults for all room types individually - even Room Names, ceiling structure, ceiling and floor finishes, moldings, etc.

 

+1 on this suggestion

[HumbleChief]

Here's the phenomenon I was describing Dermot.

 

[johnny]

Larry, for fun could you check to see if you (1) delete the room which has the issue, (2) save/close the file, and then (3) open back up and see if its still doing that.  What I think Dermot is saying is Chief is remembering the settings in the general area but that saving and opening the file again without that room present will "reset" back to default settings.

[lbuttery]

Johnny:

 

is correct - that is how it works

 

Lew

[HumbleChief]

Larry, for fun could you check to see if you (1) delete the room which has the issue, (2) save/close the file, and then (3) open back up and see if its still doing that.  What I think Dermot is saying is Chief is remembering the settings in the general area but that saving and opening the file again without that room present will "reset" back to default settings.

Tried it and I'm going to say yes it fixed it, even though I can't be sure I built over the exact same area, I tried a couple areas and the foundation built correctly after deleting the walls and closing/reopening the file. Still unexpected to my mind and has to drive a new user crazy when defaults simply stop working because Chief is 'remembering' something that no user could possibly be aware of.

[Alaskan_Son]

You can be sure you're building in the same area by simply drawing a polyline box around the room location before deleting the walls and re-saving the plan. Either that or just remove, break, or re-define a single wall to remove the room definition.

[HumbleChief]

Johnny:

 

is correct - that is how it works

 

Lew

Yes that is how it works - but should it work that way? Shouldn't a user expect that if the defaults are changed that any new room would build to those defaults? And what is 'remembered'? And for how long? And in what areas? How can one know that some area of a plan will draw to defaults while others won't? That is very baffling behavior.

 

And now that I know this I don't have to spend all the time I already spent re-building my template plan.

[HumbleChief]

You can be sure you're building in the same area by simply drawing a polyline box around the room location before deleting the walls and re-saving the plan. Either that or just remove, break, or re-define a single wall to remove the room definition.

Yes I could do that (EDIT: did that and it works as it should) but still...shouldn't one expect new rooms, no matter where you draw them, be to drawn to floor/foundation defaults?

[Dermot]

This is the way Chief was designed to work.  It's remembering the room that used to be there even though you deleted all of the walls.  When you draw the new walls your new room just inherits all of the settings from the old room.

 

I understand that this can sometimes be confusing.  I would love to make this less confusing but it's not always easy.  Over the years we've tweaked the code to try and be smarter about when we keep rooms and when we toss them.  There are probably more improvements we could make.  Maybe we shouldn't remember the room when there are no walls in cases like this?  Maybe we could have a manual tool for clearing out any temporary room data? 

 

As always, feel free to report these kinds of issues so that we are aware of them and can try and figure out ways to improve them.

 

 

 

[HumbleChief]

This is the way Chief was designed to work.  It's remembering the room that used to be there even though you deleted all of the walls.  When you draw the new walls your new room just inherits all of the settings from the old room.

 

I understand that this can sometimes be confusing.  I would love to make this less confusing but it's not always easy.  Over the years we've tweaked the code to try and be smarter about when we keep rooms and when we toss them.  There are probably more improvements we could make.  Maybe we shouldn't remember the room when there are no walls in cases like this?  Maybe we could have a manual tool for clearing out any temporary room data? 

 

As always, feel free to report these kinds of issues so that we are aware of them and can try and figure out ways to improve them.

Again a huge thanks for responding Dermot and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the way Chief is designed to work and it actually might be a GREAT feature - it's just not that clear to the user how that design is implemented.

 

If I and all Chief users knew Chief was designed that way there would be no question nor any thread regarding same and I really can't think of a good way to even describe the behavior let alone define in such a way that a user manual definition would really make sense.

 

Bottom line, I learned a little more about Chief and how it works and hope this thread helps spread some of that knowledge around.

 

Again thanks for participating, it's not a small thing and it does not go unnoticed. 

[Clare_White]

Glad you posted this. I was on vacation for a couple of days, and I have a new computer that isn't set up completely. I was starting to feel like I was losing my mind. 

 

All my favorite settings have vanished!

[dshall]

.......

 

........Since it is really common to temporarily remove or disconnect walls while editing plans, we keep rooms around for "awhile" while you are working.  How long we keep them around is a little bit ambiguous but I know if you save and reopen the plan any temporarily rooms will be gone forever.......

 

 

 

Good info,  thanks Dermot. 

[johnny]

Yes that is how it works - but should it work that way?

 

I agree a tweak is needed.  It explains issues i've had in the past.  However, I do like the functionality of "remembering" a room since it is common to adjust walls and have temp connection issues.

 

Dermot is offering suggestions too, but I personally feel a simple [ ! ] mark next to anything not set in default would be a nice reminder.

[DRAWZILLA]

Yes that is how it works - but should it work that way? Shouldn't a user expect that if the defaults are changed that any new room would build to those defaults? And what is 'remembered'? And for how long? And in what areas? How can one know that some area of a plan will draw to defaults while others won't? That is very baffling behavior.

 

And now that I know this I don't have to spend all the time I already spent re-building my template plan.

 

Larry, I would say ,you should do it anyway for lots of other reasons

[lbuttery]

Shouldn't a user expect that if the defaults are changed that any new room would build to those defaults?

 

 

Larry:

 

before the change I and others had issues with a wall being disconnected and Chief setting the room back

to the defaults - a real PITA

 

you think you have all the rooms set in an area and take some views and "a mess"

 

maybe there should be a setting in the room dbx "revert to defaults" ....

 

Lew

[glennw]

As per my previous post:

 

Maybe we need an option to recreate the room to the defaults or recreate it to the previous room parameters.

 

[HumbleChief]

Here's another explanation of the (beneficial in my opinion) behavior from Tech support.

 

The reason, simply put: the program remembers various room settings. As stated, these settings can be flushed, for example, by deleting the Foundation and starting over -- deleting the Foundation floor with Auto Rebuild on will not just clear the foundation floor, but delete the entire Floor 0, which is what is necessary to wipe all of this remembered information, saving and closing the plan is necessary to completely flush this type of information as well.

This behavior can be seen anywhere a room is defined and is typically going to help you even though it's not apparent at the time. The intent is to remember and save data about how the rooms are defined in the event that the room definition is lost, the user won't have to waste time redefining a room because they accidentally disconnected a wall, etc.

Knowing how and why it works, you can force it with expected results. For instance, if you start a brand new plan and draw a room, bisect it with an interior wall, set one room to Living and one to Family, drop the family room's Floor © value to -6", then delete the interior wall--the area will be defined by whichever room was larger, either Living or Family, and take on the settings of that room. Now, redraw the Interior wall and you will see the Living and Family rooms will be redefined as they previously were, the Living at 0" and the Family at -6".

In this specific plan, the information that is being retained is actually the Floor 1 Room's "Monolithic Slab Foundation" setting, also forcing the Floor Supplied by Foundation Room Below to be set. On Floor 1, if you open the middle room, uncheck "Floor Supplied by the Foundation Room Below" and "Monolithic Slab Foundation", then delete and redraw the room, the foundation will regenerate with default stem walls. So, in this case it's not so much remembering the Foundation, but the room above's Floor settings.

[HumbleChief]

Shouldn't a user expect that if the defaults are changed that any new room would build to those defaults?

 

 

Larry:

 

before the change I and others had issues with a wall being disconnected and Chief setting the room back

to the defaults - a real PITA

 

you think you have all the rooms set in an area and take some views and "a mess"

 

maybe there should be a setting in the room dbx "revert to defaults" ....

 

Lew

Yes Lew, good explanation and I think I've unwittingly benefited from the behavior you're describing but just never really understood it.