malconium

I have accepted the fact that I can only have one layout page at a time and that to produce a complete drawing set will require several layout view. I noticed though that in one of the standard title blocks that I have selected for use that the page number on the sheet has the following code:

A-%page%

When the sheet displays the number shown is "A-1". This suggests to me that there should be a place where I can set the page number for that layout file so that the title block will have the number I want. Of course I could edit the page number directly but It seems like it would be nice to be able to edit the "page" variable. Is there a way to do that or is the %page% coding something that really belongs to a different verison of the tool?

Hi Malcolm,

 

Do I correctly understand your request that you want the window opening on the interior of a thick wall to be wider and taller than the opening on the exterior?

 

If so, the short answer is "yes, you can do this in Pro but the software doesn't have tools to do it automatically."

 

This type of construction detail may be better explained in a note or in a stylized detail added to plans.  However, if you need a visual 3D model, then you'll probably have to build it manually and the model will get somewhat messy from a materials perspective.  I suggest forgoing the window tool altogether, and create a window opening using a doorway (i.e., grab and pull up the bottom of the doorway to form the bottom of your window opening).  Then build the window, case and sills manually using a combination of wedges, soffits, and cylinders (if you're going for a rounded flair opening) ... all with appropriate textures applied.  The work will be somewhat tedious and will require patience and attention to detail, but you may be surprised at the results.

 

Probably an easier way would be to use a thinner wall thickness for the section where you want the window, and then apply interior soffit layers to match the thick walls on either side and to frame the interior opening.  Then, use slabs to form the vertical sections that flair.  I created a quick mock up shown below using a triangular slab on the left and a curved slab on the right for different flavors of flair.

 

Good luck.

 

window.jpg

This was what I was after - at least up to a point. I was able to duplicate your suggested approach using soffits and slabs. I can get the 3D view to look fine as long as I pick the same material types for the soffits and slabs. The floor plan view though shows both the outer wall and the inner soffit/slab parts. How would I get the wall to look like a single material? I have played around with changing fill colors even making lines white with zero thickness and it looks like I can get something to work with enough effort. It is not easy to move windows though once I have set up all of soffits and slabs for a given window scenario.

I am working on a straw bale design that will obviously have thick walls. I found information in the knowledge base about how to adjust the placement of a window within the depth of the wall but I was not able to find out anything about how I might make the window well flair out on either the inside or outside depending on where the window is placed. For example if I put the window near the outside surface of a wall that is 21" thick I would like to have the sides of the window well wider at the inside surface of the wall. Is there a way to do this? I might also want to do it for a door in a thick wall.

That is a pretty tedious process but at least it is possible...

I would like to have a barrel roof over my front porch. I know how to make other types of roof shapes but I do not see anything in the roof making menus that would allow making a curved roof. Is there a way to do this?

Ahhh ok , yep I missed that  but I guess you missed the highlighted Note on page 175 of the manual when you read it too.....  it is displaying the expected behaviour I think for objects, as they are placed with coordinates, I usually use the mouse ( and CTRL key) to move objects so had not noticed this behaviour with the arrow keys

 

Rotate Plan view warning.JPG

 

guess that's 2 hours neither of us will get back 

I use the mouse and control key a lot too. The arrow keys are useful for "nudging" things. You can set the amount of distance that a nudge moves an object. I usually have mine set to 1". I find that helps. Anyway I have been doing other things besides interacting with this so not much time lost overall. I did find out some things of interest too even though the behavior was not what I expected.

We are having some trouble communicating here...

I am not talking about using the arrow keys to move the scroll bars. Rather I am talking about selecting an item and moving it with the arrow keys. Try doing that after rotating the plan.

post the plan and I will try it here , as my simple plan works as it should ie UP key is UP even after rotating.

 

also in post #3 you have posted your serial no # , sig is now fine

Did you rotate using the Tools - Rotate Plan View menu command or did you select and rotate? The small sample building I drew still had the problem. I wonder if there is perhaps some issue associated with how a keyboard interacts with the objects but I can understand why things might be different if the Cartesian coordinate system also rotates.

I did try selecting everything using the Edit Area command and rotating things that way. I am happy enough with that behavior for what I need.

the jumble up text is due to the bounding box being too small in its new orientation , if you change it in the Default settings it should work ok I think , that fixed itself for me when I tried after setting the Room Label Style too.

 

did you try rotating the plan 180 instead of reversing it  (what I think you did)   to cure the "mirroring issue"

 

M.

Where do I go to change the default bounding box for room labels? Also doesn't it seem wrong that when you select not to rotate the text with the plan that the text should change in any way?

Rotating 180 degrees is not the same as mirroring a design - so no I did not try that instead of mirroring.

I have attached 4 JPG snapshots of what I see. The snapshots are the following:

test_before.jpg <-- condition before doing anything.

test_mirror.jpg  <-- this shows how the vertically oriented text mirrors about the y-axis and is therefore not readable from the right side as before. This behavior is not impacted by the room label text settings you suggested.

test_rotate.jpg <-- this is what the text looks like after plan rotate without changing the room label text settings. The rotate with plan boxes are checked.

test_rotate_not_text.jpg <-- this shows what happens to the text when I uncheck the two room label related boxes. This shows how the text gets jumbled up.

Suggest you try it yourself. A marquee around the entire plan will select everything, even things that are not visible. 

 

Edit Area also has a "Visible" option which as it says, only selects what you see.

 

Also, read up on Rotate Plan View. I don't believe it is intended to do what you want.

I did read up on the Rotate Plan View command. I see that the issue is that the Cartesian coordinates for the drawing also rotate which probably explains why the behavior of my arrow keys change. I am still not sure that this kind of behavior makes sense though. What is the Rotate Plan View command for if not to allow the designer to change the orientation of the plan in the drawing area?

yes any layer that is locked wont be selected , you would need to go into Display options select all, unlock all and then use Eric's idea.

 

draw a simple 30'x40' hip roofed house  ( basically the HD Tutorials house) and try the rotate option from the menu , works properly for me....

 

M.

As a matter of fact I did try making a new drawing with a small structure to see if the fact that my other drawing having started in an older version made any difference. When I use the rotate plan I still get the same odd behavior.

Happened once to me too.

 

Try using Edit>Edit Area(Edit All Floors) to select the entire plan, then just rotate it to where you want it.

Thanks for the suggestion but couldn't this be dangerous if I accidentally did not select something in my design? For example if I had some aspect of the design turned off for viewing might it not get selected and therefor not rotate?

Also as matter of principle the menu command that I used should work correctly and it does not.

I tried what you suggested and got results that were not what I was looking for and in fact were not good ones. The rotated text still mirrors as before when I use the Tools - Reverse Plan command from the menu. What is worse when I use the Tools - Rotate Plan to 90 degrees the room text ends up jumbled on top of each other. The text is still un rotated but the room name, dimensions and area are not right on top of each other.

OK - I have updated my signature so that the version information will now show up. Here is what I added:

Home Designer Pro 2015

Build: 16.4.20x64

September 8, 2014

Product Key: G35HW

As you can see I am pretty up to date and I do have the Pro version. It is true that the drawing I am working on was started with an older version though. I tried the Tools - Rotate Plan View menu command again rotating by 90 degrees and I get the wrong behavior that I described.

Using the centering tool still requires manual intervention on my part. I guess my point is that the software does some sort of computation to figure out where to put the text to start with. It seems like it could be doing a better job by default. Maybe this is an enhancement request?

I just tried rotating a plan view by 90 degrees. I was stunned to find out that now the arrow keys for moving selected objects still move them in the same direction as before rather than in the direction that the arrow key points! For example the up arrow now moves objects to the left rather than up. Is there something I can do to a rotated plan to fix that? It would certainly be confusing to have that behavior persist with a rotated design.

Is there a way to get room text to do a better job of centering itself in a room when first adding it? I find that text often does not show up right in the middle of a room and I have to manually move it to better center it. I don't mind so much having to move room text if I want it in a different place than centered but I do get a bit tired of having to move it almost every time because the default location is not centered.

I occasionally need to reverse a plan when I am doing a design. I find that when I do so any text that has been rotated 90 degrees so that the bottom of the text is at the right side of the drawing gets mirrored so that the bottom of the text is on the left side. I want the text to stay right reading from the right side. Is there a way to do that with the flip so that I do not have to go in and manually rotate text back to the way I want it?

I would like to be able to specify rustic board and batten siding. How can I do that?

I want to be able to draw sliding doors that are surface mounted rather than mounted in the wall opening. Right now I need to draw this type of door on an actual workshop type building but I would also like to be able to draw them for interior doors sometimes. There are various types of tracks for this type of door too. It would be really nice to be able to draw the types of doors that have rollers and track exposed. So how can I do this?