KHawkins Posted May 3, 2019 Share Posted May 3, 2019 I have been a user of Softplan for many, many years. Thinking of converting - anyone else made the switch? Pros and cons? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tommy1 Posted May 3, 2019 Share Posted May 3, 2019 Download the trial version and see for yourself. I'm sure very different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_Gia Posted May 3, 2019 Share Posted May 3, 2019 5 hours ago, KHawkins said: I have been a user of Softplan for many, many years. Thinking of converting - anyone else made the switch? Pros and cons? I was a Softplan 14 user. Had been using the software since version 12, so probably from 2011-2013? Anyway made the switch and glad I did. The tool I missed the most and still miss is the “repeat edit” tool. Softplan is way too constrained in its procedures, example, select the roof, now select the move tool bla bla bla. No such thing in Chief. In Chief you grab that sucker from anywhere and start moving, stretching anywhere you want. You show it who’s boss. Way more ways to get things done in Chief, you’re only limited by your imagination. There really is no such thing as it can’t be done in Chief. There’s always a way. This forum is way more active and responsive. Chief’s free training videos and resources are much more plentiful with actual human beings as presenters instead of that android Softplan hired. (Sorry has to get that shot in) Chief’s roofs are more flexible and intuitive than the Softplan lollipop system. Standard 3D View, PBR, and the other rendering styles are much nicer in Chief. Convert to Symbol tool is better in Chief. Molding polylines are more flexible. Softlist is still better than what Chief offers unfortunately. Way better. Chief has had live elevations and the ability to dimension those live elevations and cross sections forever while Softplan only adopted this ability this year only. Far behind. Up until now in order to dimension an elevation in Softplan it had to be converted to dumb cad. Customization wise I would say Softplan is Apple and Chief is Android if we were to use mobile phones as a metaphor. (And this is coming from a self proclaimed Apple fanboy) Its time to jump ship. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROYOarchitects Posted May 5, 2019 Share Posted May 5, 2019 I'm not going to bore you with my history of 25+ years of CAD program usage, but will say that Chief by far is the easiest one to use right out of the box (yes, we used to get a box with disks, manuals, certificates, etc., not like today with the ease of 'Download'). I looked into Softplan and compared it to Chief and found that Chief was just a better program. There's a good tutorial on YouTube that goes through an entire project start to finish. It's a little over 1 hour but shows you a ton of the features. I agree with Michael, it's time to jump ship. Good luck. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRAWZILLA Posted May 5, 2019 Share Posted May 5, 2019 I used to have Softplan, very glad I jumped ship 15 years ago, never gone back 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KHawkins Posted May 9, 2019 Author Share Posted May 9, 2019 Thank you everyone - this is great information for me to think about. What about construction drawings? I know everyone is all about seeing pretty pictures and what the house will look like in this color - but it needs to get build. I can have 20 projects running simultaneously and no room for downtime to learn something new...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidJames Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 Just now, KHawkins said: Thank you everyone - this is great information for me to think about. What about construction drawings? I know everyone is all about seeing pretty pictures and what the house will look like in this color - but it needs to get build. I can have 20 projects running simultaneously and no room for downtime to learn something new...... I've done plenty of them with Chief Architect. No issues whatsoever! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BryceEngstrom Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 Been doing construction drawings for 20 years with Chief. Recently shared some commercial plans with a large firm in the Bay Area for coordination because our respective buildings will abut each other, and they looked at them and assumed they were Revit drawings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_Gia Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 21 minutes ago, KHawkins said: Thank you everyone - this is great information for me to think about. What about construction drawings? I know everyone is all about seeing pretty pictures and what the house will look like in this color - but it needs to get build. I can have 20 projects running simultaneously and no room for downtime to learn something new...... Although Chief is much more versatile and flexible for creating construction documents, you will miss Softplan's all in one place, plan and layout system. In Chief you have to create a separate layout file and keep it in the same folder as your plan file. Weird system that almost everyone on this forum thinks is totally normal and awesome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KHawkins Posted May 9, 2019 Author Share Posted May 9, 2019 OK- what about saving to DropBox? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_Gia Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 All my stuff is on dropbox. no issues Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joey_martin Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 I work exclusively from Dropbox. And I also use Chief Exclusively for ConDocs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jorgearaya Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 Here are my thoughts about it. Our trade requires a toolbox with several tools for specific tasks We receive plans in all kinds of formats that we can in turn either convert to or work directly on To streamline the tasks and expand the services to as many markets as possible we “add” tools to the toolbox Archicad, Chief Architect, Softplan, AutoCAD Bundle. All very similar to learn and use (except AutoCAD) So, not really a conversion right? Chief is a great tool! No disappointments at all (Now, none are perfect either). Good luck! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parkwest Posted May 9, 2019 Share Posted May 9, 2019 I agree with Jorge... carpenter uses more than one type of saw... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glennw Posted May 10, 2019 Share Posted May 10, 2019 7 hours ago, Michael_Gia said: I can have 20 projects running simultaneously and no room for downtime to learn something new...... In that case, better off sticking with what you have got because learning any piece of new software will entail downtime. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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