solver

How do you "zoom all the way out"? That is, what action are you doing that causes the problem? I don't believe there is a way to constrain the drawing size. My projects are normally small, 500 sq ft or less, and using the mouse to wheel in and out has always worked for me.

Materials List From Room works for me using Pro. You might try contacting tech support.

Check out the buttons on the far right of the screen. Push the 5th one from the top. Use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out.

Could you be more specific about what you need that you are not getting?

I had the exact same frustrating experience when learning the program. The roof break tool is located in the Edit Toolbar. I usually use the keyboard commands, Q to draw a new roof plane, 2 to join roof planes, and 3 to break.

Chief Architect products, including the Home Designer titles do not play well with others. You can export as a DXF -- have you tried that? I'd suggest a single copy of Premier if all you need is the ray tracing. Use and learn Pro, have Premier available for as needed use. You will usually get special upgrade pricing when the next version of the Chief products -- normally in the first quarter, and they will give you a credit for Pro. You might ask over at ChiefTalk too, where you will find users familiar with the products in question.

This forum is for users of the Home Designer software, not a general forum on design issues. That said, you should talk to a builder/remodeler, and a designer, if you are not clear about what you want to do.

This is a fairly common request/problem. The software design makes this more complicated than it should be. You can model this by adding a 2nd floor. Think of everything up to the 8' level as floor 1, and everything above as floor 2. Use a room divider to outline the rooms below, and make the rest of the 2nd floor open below.

When you select a door or window, you get temporary dimensions. Mouse over the dimensions and you will see the cursor will change to a hand on some of them. When that happens, clicking the dimension will allow you to change it. Have you reviewed the Knowledge Base articles, and the Help within the program? Searching here will also find threads on dimensions. You can use Auto Interior Dimensions to fully dimension the plan.

Electrical items need a wall to attach to. I have a user defined wall that is single 1/16" layer of air. Set it to No Room Definition, No Locate, Invisible. Place where you want your sconce, then place the sconce.

You can resize in plan and camera views. I would try a simple shape, see how it responds in your plan. I've only done one thing with SketchUp, so I am no expert.

Trim gets created in SketchUp then imported into Home Designer. Check 3D Warehouse, you may find something that works, or something to start from.

You can make the room a Deck, changing the settings for the floor structure etc as needed. Or you can complete your design, and just delete the foundation walls you don't want.

Turn off auto rebuild foundation. Put a roof on it.

Post some images of the type of trim, and where it will be placed to help us out.

That's normal. Bothered me at first too, but I became used to it. I have seen many much worse than that. It depends on how/where your camera is set up.

Could you post a plan with the custom material?

Looks like you have some settings wrong on the back part of the house. Check walls to make sure nothing extra is checked. Set the pitch on the 2 outside walls -- you may need to break them where the shed roof stops. Set the end wall to full gable. See how the roof builds. You can post the plan file -- make sure it's closed in Home Designer, for better help.

Sometimes the program gets confused, and extraneous attic walls will show up. 1) Copy the porch roof that is visible on the attic level. 2) Build>Floor>Delete Current Floor 3) Go back to the Attic level. 4) Paste>Paste Hold Position to put the roof back.

Could you post an example.

Try posting the plan again. Make sure it's not open in Home Designer.

Not within Home Designer. If the item was created in SketchUp, for example, you will need to change the orientation there, then import into the program.

I changed the ceiling to 84" which is code here -- your local may be different. The Pro version has manual roofs, so you may draw roof planes yourself, or modify auto built roofs. You can often trick the program into producing the roof you want. One way is by using invisible walls. For the extended overhang in front of the garage, you could draw a room divider just behind the garage door. This creates a room between it and the outside wall. Turn off Roof Over This Room for that space. Then adjust the roof overhang, pitch etc using the room divider. You can vary the location of that wall, and adjust the overhang to get that part of the roof to look correct. For the back of the new garage, I was not sure how you expected it to look, so I cannot offer any suggestions. It's best to get your walls and ceiling heights set before working on the roof, as even small changes in either can change the way the roof builds. Once you have the plan done, and have decided on pitch and other variables, we will help get the roof as you want it.

The trial versions are fully functional. When you say "I can't import a picture" -- what is the problem?

Did you try raising the floor level of the deck up?