Is Buying A Different Program The Best Way To Draw Dormers?

[EconBlueprints]

Ugggg.
I think the "auto floating dormer" is as useless as **** on a bull, second only to the"auto dormer" button.
Sorry, frustration venting.

[Kbird1]

7 minutes ago, EconBlueprints said:

Ugggg.
I think the "auto floating dormer" is as useless as **** on a bull, second only to the"auto dormer" button.
Sorry, frustration venting.

 

Well the thread title certainly had me laughing , so thanks , I needed someone to lighten the day , X11 just crashed and closed with no warnings or a chance to save anything here, so it looks like I have lost hours of work in Layout and Plan Touchups....

 

Many people find Manual Dormers are the way to go.....

 

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/category/234/dormers.html

 

M.

[Alaskan_Son]

The thing I find that causes people the most problem with the auto dormers tool is not reading up on them to understand their limitations, and  not changing the height and/or width settings to accommodate their desired placement.  

[tommy1]

For me it generally depends on the situation. If the dormer is part of the living space and is for some kind of room, I do the dormer manually for I will need to be accurate of the wall placement.

[Chrisb222]

1 hour ago, Kbird1 said:

X11 just crashed and closed with no warnings or a chance to save anything here, so it looks like I have lost hours of work

 

No offense, but you worked for hours without saving changes??

 

That "forgot to save, system crashed" is a harsh teacher, but she gets your attention.

[Kbird1]

6 hours ago, Chrisb222 said:

 

No offense, but you worked for hours without saving changes??

 

That "forgot to save, system crashed" is a harsh teacher, but she gets your attention.

 

No Offence and no I learnt that Lesson long ago, with a plan I forgot to name (save) immediately after Opening a New Plan.....

 

I regularly hit the Save Icon but either that isn't working properly in X11 or my Mouse Clicks are not always seen , and to my surprise setting my AutoSave to 5 minutes and also a Hourly Archive, it seems the Layout File was not effected by these settings or something else is going on.....I would not be surprised if the crash and disappearance of X11 was caused by an attempt to autosave/archive, so I ended up with nothing.

 

It is a real pain in the A** for find over 100 UndoPlan Files from yesterday in the undo Folder but CA won't open any of them due to a "corrupt file header" 

 

Luckily my autobackup of the Data Folder did occur to an external HDD yesterday afternoon, so I didn't lose everything but the Layout is complaining about lost Layers and annotations etc and its look like I need to relink all 46 pages.... ( where is the Re-link All Button? ...still checking....)

 

M.

[Chrisb222]

2 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

 

No Offence and no I learnt that Lesson long ago, with a plan I forgot to name (save) immediately after Opening a New Plan.....

 

I regularly hit the Save Icon but either that isn't working properly in X11 or my Mouse Clicks are not always seen , and to my surprise setting my Auto save to 5 minutes and an Hourly Archive it seems the Layout File is not effected by these setting or something else is going on.....I would not be surprised if the crash and disappearance of X11 was caused by an attempt to autosave/archive , so I ended up with nothing. It is a real pain in the A** for find over 100 UndoPlan Files from yesterday but CA won't open any of them due to a "corrupt file header" 

 

Luckily my autobackup of the Data Folder did occur to and external yesterday afternoon, so I didn't lose everything but the Layout is complaining about lost Layers and annotations etc and its look like I need to relink all 46 pages.... ( where is the Re-link All Button? ...still checking....)

 

M.

 

Wow, that's horrible, sorry for making light of it.  Good luck getting everything back. 

[EconBlueprints]

     Yup, I abandoned the auto dormers and auto floating dormers for manual dormers.  I really do not understand why dormer dimensions are to the siding layer and not to the main layer like all my other dimensions.
     Oh well, it is Chief and my love hate relationship grown one way or another day by day.  

     By the way, after building hundreds and hundreds of homes, having done who knows how many blueprints, having been to see a gazillion building inspectors....I still have not found one single person that considers a mud sill to be part of the foundation.  It is and always has been part of the framing.  Only Chief thinks a Mud Sill is part of the foundation.

[Kbird1]

2 minutes ago, EconBlueprints said:

     Yup, I abandoned the auto dormers and auto floating dormers for manual dormers.  I really do not understand why dormer dimensions are to the siding layer and not to the main layer like all my other dimensions.

 

I believe it is cos they are actually Architectural Blocks in reality

     Oh well, it is Chief and my love hate relationship grown one way or another day by day.  

     By the way, after building hundreds and hundreds of homes, having done who knows how many blueprints, having been to see a gazillion building inspectors....I still have not found one single person that considers a mud sill to be part of the foundation.  It is and always has been part of the framing. 

 

Only Chief thinks a Mud Sill is part of the foundation.

 

I know where you are coming from....still fools me that I can't see the 1st Floor - Floor Framing on Level 1 too but they consider anything below top of the subfloor to be part of the foundation.

 

[Kbird1]

8 hours ago, Chrisb222 said:

 

Wow, that's horrible, sorry for making light of it.  Good luck getting everything back. 

 

Just sorting things out now , my backups had a few different versions, so I have been importing Layersets, defaults and SPVS etc to try and make it all match up again in One plan ...and Layout......

 

and trying to figure out what you told Larry in the Auto Dims thread as it would seem I have the similar but opposite issue as him.... nothing changes...seems like everything is now on 1/4" Anno default in EVERY Anno somehow.....

 

At least in these recovered Files.....

 

M.

 

 

[Jay_on_Cape]

2 hours ago, EconBlueprints said:

    

     By the way, after building hundreds and hundreds of homes, having done who knows how many blueprints, having been to see a gazillion building inspectors....I still have not found one single person that considers a mud sill to be part of the foundation.  It is and always has been part of the framing.  Only Chief thinks a Mud Sill is part of the foundation.

Preach it brother, preach it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lbuttery]

so it looks like I have lost hours of work in Layout and Plan Touchups....

 

Mick:

 

this is why I don't rely on autosave

 

I do my own "save as" frequently - sometimes every 5 minutes

and certainly when I finish a task I don't want to repeat 

 

Lew

[Alaskan_Son]

6 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

I know where you are coming from....still fools me that I can't see the 1st Floor - Floor Framing on Level 1 too but they consider anything below top of the subfloor to be part of the foundation.

 

This one is a long time drafting standard. 

[Kbird1]

3 hours ago, lbuttery said:

so it looks like I have lost hours of work in Layout and Plan Touchups....

 

Mick:

 

this is why I don't rely on autosave

 

I do my own "save as" frequently - sometimes every 5 minutes

and certainly when I finish a task I don't want to repeat 

 

Lew

 

That is how I also work these days , and I know I saved the Plan file numerous time manually with the Icon yesterday afternoon, so I can't really say what happened , but it is the 3rd time X11 has just closed and disappeared without warning , the 1st twice it was with plans form the Forum so I didn't really lose anything, but it is usually when I am or was doing something in the Library.

 

I am not sure why CA has not developed a Method to Use Undoplan.plans as a rescue method as I have 100 files upto almost the minute before the Crash, including a a 40+ mb file and I couldn't use it.

 

M.

[Kbird1]

1 hour ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

This one is a long time drafting standard. 

 

That I didn't know , but I guess it is the Builder in Me, I feel like I should be able to look down and see it just like on the job , the Floor starts at the Top of the Concrete foundation wall as far as my Builder Brain works and has done for 35+ years now....

 

M.

[Chrisb222]

6 hours ago, Alaskan_Son said:

This one is a long time drafting standard. 

 

+1

 

5 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

That I didn't know , but I guess it is the Builder in Me, I feel like I should be able to look down and see it just like on the job , the Floor starts at the Top of the Concrete foundation wall as far as my Builder Brain works and has done for 35+ years now....

 

When I thought about that I actually thought, no, when the building is framed, if you look down when standing on Floor 1, you see the surface of the subfloor, and when you look up you see the floor joists for floor 2, or the roof framing. Just like the way Chief and architects have always viewed it.

[lbuttery]

Mick:

 

I meant using "save as" that way you get to specify the file name and location

 

I click on a prior file in the windows explorer dbx and change the date/time

this way I am creating a string of backups on my own

 

doing a "save" just keep overwriting the same file - then if there is a crash it may get corrupted

 

Lew

[Kbird1]

3 hours ago, lbuttery said:

Mick:

 

I meant using "save as" that way you get to specify the file name and location

 

I click on a prior file in the windows explorer dbx and change the date/time

this way I am creating a string of backups on my own

 

doing a "save" just keep overwriting the same file - then if there is a crash it may get corrupted

 

Lew

 

Ahhhh....  thanks for clarifying Lew , I have always used the Icon or a Programmed Mouse Button , but admit my failure to check that the SAVE was actually happening , though having an Explorer Window open yesterday on another Monitor showed it did make a save each time ( time changed on File ) , though in X11 I haven't really needed that as there is a 15-30 second "pause" in Chief whenever you do a Save. But as you suggest I should likely be a bit more Proactive in my saving files.

 

M.

[Kbird1]

4 hours ago, Chrisb222 said:

When I thought about that I actually thought, no, when the building is framed, if you look down when standing on Floor 1, you see the surface of the subfloor, and when you look up you see the floor joists for floor 2, or the roof framing. Just like the way Chief and architects have always viewed it.

 

Now you are just showing your "Architect's View of the World"     and I can assure you it is not the same as the average Builder's ...... at least when I am/was Framing I didn't "see" the Plywood, it's like an after thought or the wrapping on that Birthday Present you just got.... and for me at least it is long ingrained, I may do Design-Build but I still see the World from a Carpenter's point of View, I guess it's the whole left brain - right brain argument or Function over Form for some of us.

 

M.

[HumbleChief]

Mick,

 

This is a long time too late but I had a file that I overwrote the other day which was a pretty long and painful correction list for The City. I went and checked DropBox and sure enough there was a 'version history' option. Checked that, there was my original file, restored it - SIGH. Very nice feature.

[Kbird1]

13 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

Mick,

 

This is a long time too late but I had a file that I overwrote the other day which was a pretty long and painful correction list for The City. I went and checked DropBox and sure enough there was a 'version history' option. Checked that, there was my original file, restored it - SIGH. Very nice feature.

 

Although I use DropBox , I don't use it as a "live" backup anymore , after a Folder "disappeared" , in that case I had my local backups ( I use and extra 2TB internal HDD just for backups with Syncback and Macrium each night and an External USB HDD too) saved me , so I pulled my real folders off Dropbox and have Syncback backup to the Dropbox Folder each night , and it syncs after that. I may need to think about a more Robust "Paid " backup scheme with the added features like access reports and versioning though after this incident.

 

M.

[HumbleChief]

10 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

 

Although I use DropBox , I don't use it as a "live" backup anymore , after a Folder "disappeared" , in that case I had my local backups ( I use and extra 2TB internal HDD just for backups with Syncback and Macrium each night and an External USB HDD too) saved me , so I pulled my real folders off Dropbox and have Syncback backup to the Dropbox Folder each night , and it syncs after that. I may need to think about a more Robust "Paid " backup scheme with the added features like access reports and versioning though after this incident.

 

M.

...and I have Carbonite which I've only had to use twice in the many years I've had it but it saved a couple plans and many hours of work those 2 times.

 

I feel your pain and these posts don't help much as I've lost work too but it's much rarer now that I understand some of the options out there...

[Kbird1]

7 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

...and I have Carbonite which I've only had to use twice in the many years I've had it but it saved a couple plans and many hours of work those 2 times.

 

I feel your pain and these posts don't help much as I've lost work too but it's much rarer now that I understand some of the options out there...

 

Although CA seems to crash once in a while when I play in the library for some reason , I have never had an issue before with using Files from the Archive Folder and perhaps losing an hour or so of work but never a whole afternoon in Layout, luckily  the model was already mostly done , and so it was mostly re-sending Views , though some had to be re-annotated and Dimensioned etc. I now have Syncback running an hourly backup instead of Daily if the Computer is on, so hopefully that will help.

 

Thanks for the thoughts and advice...

 

M.

[Chrisb222]

1 hour ago, Kbird1 said:

Now you are just showing your "Architect's View of the World"     and I can assure you it is not the same as the average Builder's ...... at least when I am/was Framing I didn't "see" the Plywood, it's like an after thought or the wrapping on that Birthday Present you just got.... and for me at least it is long ingrained, I may do Design-Build but I still see the World from a Carpenter's point of View, I guess it's the whole left brain - right brain argument or Function over Form for some of us.

 

HAHA! Interesting. I too am a design-builder with more experience and knowledge of construction than design.

 

But whether you're a designer, a builder, or anyone really, it should make sense that the plan pages reflect what you can actually see in that space... if you think about it. 

[Kbird1]

14 minutes ago, Chrisb222 said:

 

HAHA! Interesting. I too am a design-builder with more experience and knowledge of construction than design.

 

But whether you're a designer, a builder, or anyone really, it should make sense that the plan pages reflect what you can actually see in that space... if you think about it. 

 

Exactly....when I am looking at 1st Floor Framing , I don't "see" the Plywood , and I am not sure which Builder would consider the 1st Floor Framing to be part of the Foundation? at least not me.... , I have never headed to the basement to look up at the Floor Framing...... but everyone "thinks" differently right so.....

 

M.