X-9's best features


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2 minutes ago, jscussel said:

Using X9, I had Chief make a Living Area Poly and found that Chief didn't split the wall between Living Area and the Garage. Is this new in X9?

Jon maybe your garage room is marked living or you didn't use the  living area polyline

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Joe,

 

Thanks for confirming.

 

This goes back to the question I asked you in the GTM yesterday. Why not use room Type for the Area Analysis?  I don't need site analysis, I need Living Area plus things like Deck, garage, porch, attic and basement to come up with a total building sq ft for the builder.

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3 minutes ago, jscussel said:

Joe,

 

Thanks for confirming.

 

This goes back to the question I asked you in the GTM yesterday. Why not use room Type for the Area Analysis?  I don't need site analysis, I need Living Area plus things like Deck, garage, porch, attic and basement to come up with a total building sq ft for the builder.

I have a macro package that uses "Room Names".  Those names have to be different for each room so that two rooms with the same name don't over-write the area accumulations.  With X9, you could use Room Type, but it's superfluous because then you still have to have a different Room Type for each room.

 

This is just a detail of how macros work in Chief.

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7 hours ago, dshall said:

Here are a couple of vids on Michael's method.  Not great vids,  Michael also did some vids on his method.If you guys can get through an hour of boredom watching the vids,  you will probably find the time spent was well worth it.

 

PART 1

 

 

PART 2

 

 

Hey Scott,

 

2 quick comments that might help you or others out. 

 

  • The reason labels need to be displayed is because in simple terms, Chief needs to be able to "see" them.  You can set the text height to zero, you can set the actual label to display "" (I think I went over this in part 3 of my video series?)  or drag the labels off to the side.  They just must be visible.  
  • I think this is also something I tried to touch on in part 3 of my video series, but the reason you're having problems on the second floor is much the same as the reason labels need to be displayed...Chief needs to be able to "see" those polyline labels you have on the floor below in order to properly calculate them.  What's happening when you move to the second floor is that when you open Text Macro Management, every macro is being calculated based on the polyline you have selected.  In this case it was that deck area.  Normally this is not a problem because once you close TMM, the labels in the polylines will take back over and correct all those numbers immediately.  Because all those labels are on the first floor though, Chief can't see them, so the numbers are just reporting based on that deck area you had previously selected.  You shouldn't need to cut that polyline and move it to the first floor,  all you should need to do is switch your VIEW to the first floor then move back to your second floor.  None of this is usually an issue when you print as ALL the macros should be re-executed at that time.  It's really only a problem when you open and close TMM or use Insert <  because whenever you do either of those things, EVERY macro is executed based on the item you have selected.  Chief does this so it knows which ones are valid and which ones aren't.  Anyway, all you need to do is "show" those labels to Chief (i.e. make sure they're visible on screen) and all should be well. 

 

Hope that helps.

 

P.S.  For any of you guys using my system, if I seem to have enough interest I may eventually continue the series to show you how you can cut your required macros in half or even in third and to take you a little deeper into the tricks available in Ruby.  I touched on some of the methods required for the above in part 3 of the video series, but there's definitely more than can be done to improve upon the system. 

 

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8 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

Hey Scott,

 

2 quick comments that might help you or others out. 

 

  • The reason labels need to be displayed is because in simple terms, Chief needs to be able to "see" them.  You can set the text height to zero, you can set the actual label to display "" (I think I went over this in part 3 of my video series?)  or drag the labels off to the side.  They just must be visible.  
  • I think this is also something I tried to touch on in part 3 of my video series, but the reason you're having problems on the second floor is much the same as the reason labels need to be displayed...Chief needs to be able to "see" those polyline labels you have on the floor below in order to properly calculate them.  What's happening when you move to the second floor is that when you open Text Macro Management, every macro is being calculated based on the polyline you have selected.  In this case it was that deck area.  Normally this is not a problem because once you close TMM, the labels in the polylines will take back over and correct all those numbers immediately.  Because all those labels are on the first floor though, Chief can't see them, so the numbers are just reporting based on that deck area you had previously selected.  You shouldn't need to cut that polyline and move it to the first floor,  all you should need to do is switch your VIEW to the first floor then move back to your second floor.  None of this is usually an issue when you print as ALL the macros should be re-executed at that time.  It's really only a problem when you open and close TMM or use Insert <  because whenever you do either of those things, EVERY macro is executed based on the item you have selected.  Chief does this so it knows which ones are valid and which ones aren't.  Anyway, all you need to do is "show" those labels to Chief (i.e. make sure they're visible on screen) and all should be well. 

 

Hope that helps.

 

P.S.  For any of you guys using my system, if I seem to have enough interest I may eventually continue the series to show you how you can cut your required macros in half or even in third and to take you a little deeper into the tricks available in Ruby.  I touched on some of the methods required for the above in part 3 of the video series, but there's definitely more than can be done to improve upon the system. 

 

Interested +1

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Michael,

Do I still need to cut the p-line to have it not display .b/c I have added a lot of new macro's to your system, and will it not show in the tabulation area. Sometimes on smaller jobs, I have a lot of zeros in that box.

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25 minutes ago, DRAWZILLA said:

Michael,

Do I still need to cut the p-line to have it not display .b/c I have added a lot of new macro's to your system, and will it not show in the tabulation area. Sometimes on smaller jobs, I have a lot of zeros in that box.

 

If I am understanding correctly, I would probably recommend you make yourself some different tabulation boxes, reports, or whatever you want to call them.  Rather than display a bunch of zero areas, you could simply not display them at all that way. You can have as many of those in your template plan as you need.  The only thing you have to avoid doing is accidentally setting the GLOBAL value for any of those areas more than once.  You can display those values as many times as you want, you just can't set those values more than once. 

 

Does that answer your question?

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2 minutes ago, DRAWZILLA said:

thank for the info, if I just deleted the line that has that  value in the tabulation box, would it not show and not screw anything else up?

 

No.  It shouldn't screw anything up at all unless you've further modified my system to have one of those macros in that text box setting a global value (which is not something I recall ever doing in my videos). 

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3 hours ago, jscussel said:

Joe,

 

Thanks for confirming.

 

This goes back to the question I asked you in the GTM yesterday. Why not use room Type for the Area Analysis?  I don't need site analysis, I need Living Area plus things like Deck, garage, porch, attic and basement to come up with a total building sq ft for the builder.

 

I'm not sure about Joe's system, but at least with my system,  it is VERY flexible...its really the whole point of going with a DIY system.   You set it up to the way you want it to work.  And you don't need to use it for site analysis,  it's for AREA analysis...any area.

 

And you can use ANY polyline or even actual room areas.  

 

Also, a person could consider using room finish schedules in lieu of or in combination with the above.  Those room finish schedules can be very versatile if you set them up specifically for your needs.  You can set them to display only the desired rooms or room types, only from the desired floor, and only to include the desired columns. Worth a look though for sure.

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