Chasing Attic Walls...

[Alaskan_Son]

4 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

but yes my "evidence" is I see in not only in my own plans occasionally especially when I do Manual roof plane manipulation but also in plans from the Forum and Elsewhere

 

This is evidence of nothing.  It's simply an observation.  It could very easily be the result of the various users unwittingly meddling with their attic walls.  I still think this is the most likely case in most (if not all) of the various examples you've seen.  I will await any real evidence to the contrary. 

[Kbird1]

6 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

I will await any real evidence to the contrary.

 

If I could reproduce it easily, I would of sent in a report to TS already and shared their answer here long ago, unfortunately I haven't been able to reproduce it constantly so I just use Alt-Q to Clean Up and move on.....

 

* And I don't "meddle" with my Attic Walls -- unless I need too....

 

M.

[DzinEye]

11 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

* And I don't "meddle" with my Attic Walls -- unless I need too....

Meddler!

[Alaskan_Son]

 

46 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

* And I don't "meddle" with my Attic Walls -- unless I need too....

 

This is really the crux of the problem though.  As soon as a person does, the wall is both retained and not regenerated, and many people do so without taking note of what they did or recognizing that it may cause them problems further on down the road. 

 

That being said, I'm going to help you out a bit here.  There is one scenario I know of where Chief doesn't issue that warning and probably should, and that's when placing a window or door into an attic wall.  The addition of the opening means you've manually manipulated the wall and its no longer an Auto Generated wall.  This one I can see happening without anyone knowing the Auto status was changed, but it's still the result of direct user manipulation and I doubt it's the cause of more than a small handful of these attic wall problems.  I'm pretty certain the vast majority are cases where people did get that pop-up warning but chose to make the change anyway.

 

EDIT:  There's another scenario where we don't get the pop-up warning too, and that's when adding a Material Region to an attic wall.  As with the addition of an opening though, a person is making the deliberate addition of an object to the plan and as such would have to go up and manually delete those objects anyway.  That being said, I do believe this is another case where Chief should be issuing a warning and they aren't.   

[SNestor]

1 hour ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

If I could "quickly" elaborate or direct you to a specific language I would.  I don't have anything off the top though.  I just know I've read and heard many times from Chief that they don't recommend the conventional "Save As Method" many of us are accustomed to where we just keep reusing the same file and just deleting what we don't need.  It quickly becomes bloated and error filled, carrying problems forward from one plan and version to the next.

 

I guess the better answer I could give is this...

 

Where in the documentation is the Save As Method recommended?  Answer:  It's not. 

 

I'm with Michael on this one...the SAM (Save As Method) might save you a few clicks...or, it could cost you a lot of time trying to chase down some elusive item causing your plan to be all screwed up.  @dshall Scott Hall swears by the SAM and has been using it for years.  But...Scott is most likely the creator of this method and he really understands Chief Architect Software - inside and out.  I'm sure he developed his layer sets to work with his SAM over the years and knows just about everything that is going on in his plans.   

 

But, for me...I prefer to use a template plan to start with...something I am familiar with and know it works...consistently from plan to plan.  When I create a new plan with a template...I know there are no stray walls on weird layers, no stray framing members, no stray foundation or attic walls.  Just...a blank template ready for me to put it to work.    

[HumbleChief]

Also please remember I changed my default exterior wall Layer to 'walls, normal EXTERIOR'  which is the layer that my attic walls now generate on. The walls that appear to have been created manually are on the walls, attic layer which are no longer generated automatically and just sit there on a layer that's no longer used/visible. That's been remedied of course.

 

Either way it's great to have more understanding in the ways of Chief...

[HumbleChief]

Not sure how the SAM method made its way in to the conversation but I don't think there's many who use that method. Could be wrong but thought it lost favor for various reasons?

[Alaskan_Son]

2 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

Also please remember I changed my default exterior wall Layer to 'walls, normal EXTERIOR'  which is the layer that my attic walls now generate on. The walls that appear to have been created manually are on the walls, attic layer which are no longer generated automatically and just sit there on a layer that's no longer used/visible.

 

This is really neither here nor there.  It just means that you made you manual manipulations to those walls before you changed that default setting is all.  The main reason I personally pointed out that change to your Exterior Wall Defaults is that it just makes it a little more difficult to troubleshoot and it kills some of Chief's automated behaviors.  The Auto Regenerate behavior however is not one of them.

[Alaskan_Son]

2 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

Not sure how the SAM method made its way in to the conversation but I don't think there's many who use that method.

 

YOU are using that method.  That's why you have those errant walls up there.

[HumbleChief]

Not sure I understand the SAM method then. I use a template plan and never 'Save As' a plan file - ever. How does using a template translate in to using the SAM method? Genuinely confused...

[Renerabbitt]

 

4 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

Not sure I understand the SAM method then. I use a template plan and never 'Save As' a plan file - ever. How does using a template translate in to using the SAM method? Genuinely confused...

You're importing your anno sets every time then?

 

 

Just my two cents, the new X-12 Save As Template tool is absolutely fantastic. I do most of my keynotes, schedules, details in CAD Details.. the new Save As Template can retain my CAD Details and delete all unwanted geometry etc. Love it!

[HumbleChief]

9 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

This is really neither here nor there.  It just means that you made you manual manipulations to those walls before you changed that default setting is all.  The main reason I personally pointed out that change to your Exterior Wall Defaults is that it just makes it a little more difficult to troubleshoot and it kills some of Chief's automated behaviors.  The Auto Regenerate behavior however is not one of them.

Never made manual manipulations to those walls. Just sayin' - never did - no matter what the plan nor the wall dbx implies. Never did. Maybe that helps maybe it doesn't but never manually manipulated those walls.

[HumbleChief]

3 minutes ago, Renerabbitt said:

 

You're importing your anno sets every time then?

 

 

Just my two cents, the new X-12 Save As Template tool is absolutely fantastic. I do most of my keynotes, schedules, details in CAD Details.. the new Save As Template can retain my CAD Details and delete all unwanted geometry etc. Love it!

Thought I was using that as well. Maybe not though. I should recheck my methods. 

 

Darn just when I think I understand things. I have a template plan that I open for each new plan and it has all my Anno Sets Saved Plan Views etc. 

 

I will save that plan as "New Job Name" but how else would one proceed with a template plan?

[rgardner]

22 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

Thought I was using that as well. Maybe not though. I should recheck my methods. 

 

Darn just when I think I understand things. I have a template plan that I open for each new plan and it has all my Anno Sets Saved Plan Views etc. 

 

I will save that plan as "New Job Name" but how else would one proceed with a template plan?

Learning from this rather lively convo:

 

it appears like what Michael is saying is that your template has some errant walls saved in it when you built the template maybe?  Why not open a blank one with your template and throw all layers on and check all levels?  Might find something or put that point to bed as not the issue???

[Alaskan_Son]

26 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

Never made manual manipulations to those walls. Just sayin' - never did - no matter what the plan nor the wall dbx implies. Never did.

 

Very well then.  Carry on.

[HumbleChief]

1 minute ago, rgardner said:

Learning from this rather lively convo:

 

it appears like what Michael is saying is that your template has some errant walls saved in it when you built the template maybe?  Why not open a blank one with your template and throw all layers on and check all levels?  Might find something or put that point to bed as not the issue???

Yes, the template HAD some errant walls. Fixed it - issue solved.

[ACADuser]

Why would Chief throw up a warning when all you did was to look at the DBX of an attic wall.
The user changed nothing but by their ignorance, they said OK to a seemingly erroneous warning.
I never knew the consequences of saying OK. The program should be smarter.
And so should I.

[Alaskan_Son]

4 minutes ago, ACADuser said:

Why would Chief throw up a warning when all you did was to look at the DBX of an attic wall.
The user changed nothing but by their ignorance, they said OK to a seemingly erroneous warning.
I never knew the consequences of saying OK. The program should be smarter.

 

That's what the Cancel button is for.  Why would you think the warning is erroneous anyway?  That's the problem with failing to recognize we're the ones making the mistakes.  We assume it's Chief and learn nothing. 

[Alaskan_Son]

35 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

I will save that plan as "New Job Name" but how else would one proceed with a template plan?

 

You might want to start by hitting F1 or clicking Launch Help and searching the word "Template". 

[ACADuser]

26 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

That's what the Cancel button is for.  Why would you think the warning is erroneous anyway?  That's the problem with failing to recognize we're the ones making the mistakes.  We assume it's Chief and learn nothing. 

I confess that I spend more time meeting work deadlines than studying Chief.

As a programmer, you must protect the user from themselves. Make it foolproof and they can not make dumb mistakes.

If you changed nothing in the DBX any method you exit the DBX should not result in the user making an error.

Can you tell me why the attic wall is now flagged was altered?

 

[Alaskan_Son]

14 minutes ago, ACADuser said:

Make it foolproof and they can not make dumb mistakes.

 

Never gonna happen.  Chief prints up thousands of pages of documentation, gives us pop-ups and information panels in various dialogs and people read almost none of it.  Or they DO read it and just ignore what it says or dismiss it as "erroneous".  Software companies like Chief can only try so hard.

 

17 minutes ago, ACADuser said:

Can you tell me why the attic wall is now flagged was altered?

It was considered altered simply by clicking Okay instead of Cancel and you were warned appropriately.  I don't personally care that this happens though.  This type of functionality can make it super quick and easy to disconnect a wall from it's automated behavior if desired, so it also has its benefits.  I can however see why a person might want it not to happen if no changes were made.  They could instead let us uncheck that Automatically Generated Wall checkbox, but then people would mess with that setting never bothering to read what it's for and then piss and moan because all their attic walls are "glitchy" or "buggy".  There's no winning.

[HumbleChief]

59 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

You might want to start by hitting F1 or clicking Launch Help and searching the word "Template". 

Checked help and am using Template plans as intended and have been for years. Thanks.

[ACADuser]

Well-said Michael.

 

[HumbleChief]

9 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

There's no winning.

I disagree. There's a lot of 'winning' with threads like these and help from fellow users like yourself. I win every time I open a thread like this and learn just a little bit more about Chief. And as always thank you for your, and everyone's help.

[HumbleChief]

Wanted to share another experience and express my gratitude for all the help in this thread. Another plan had an attic wall that wasn't drawing correctly but now I knew how to fix it. NICE...