solver

Soffits for the framing and screen.

What the kat said ^^^

See the full comparison between Home Designer Pro to Chief Architect

I have opened your 2014 plans in 2016 and never noticed such changes. I open plans from others too that were done in older versions and never had this type of problem. So I don't know how to help. You might send tech support a message and see what they say.

When I draw a new wall, it looks like all the others -- no painting.

Go to the second floor. Select and copy the 4 walls that create the room. Delete the second floor. Go through the steps to reset, then change wall and roof directives outlined above. The settings for the front wall should look like this. Build a blank second floor. Paste>Paste Hold Position to put the walls back. Change the Rough Ceiling to 104 3/8". Back to the front wall on the first floor. Uncheck Upper Pitch. I have no clue why, and there may be an easier way.

My guess is that there are not enough people actively using Pro in any given area to make user groups viable. It's also far less complex than Chief, so less need for groups to gather to share knowledge.

Don't count on it. I think we are mostly ignored.

No. I posted multiple suggestions on how to improve tab management. Please write this up and post as a suggestion.

Suite lacks the ability to define new wall types.

No need to back up. New version installs in a new directory. No need to uninstall 2014, unless you just want too. If you have made changes to the default templates, they will need to be copied over to the new directory structure.

The Chief Architect forum is ChiefTalk. This forum is for the Home Designer products. They all have a free trial that you may download and test for yourself. This is really a sales related question best answered by the folks at Chief, but yes, you can get a door and window count, and it will contain measurements.

Post the plan?

You really do need to upgrade

That's not the default setting for Home Designer -- that is, cameras are set to display in plan view is the default. There is a related setting under Edit>Default Settings>Camera Always Display Active Cameras.

Have you tried defining a new wall? Essentially a combination of the two. I don't see any reason you could not.

A door and a doorway, window and pass-through.

As I suspected, the display of cameras in plan view is off. Tools>Display Options Check Cameras.

When you have structural problems especially, it's best to post the plan file as well as pictures. Make sure it's closed before posting. Make a copy of the plan. Go to the Build Roof dialog and change the pitch to 10. Go to Edit>Default Settings>Floor and make sure your ceiling heights are correct. Do this for both floors -- in plan view, go to floor 1 and then set defaults, got to floor 2 and set defaults. Go to Edit>Reset to Defaults. Select All Floors and check all the options. Build the roof. Go around the plan changing walls to Full Gable and changing the pitch as needed. This should get you to a default build, although I suspect there will be problems with the second floor roof. Resources for self help: The built in Help System (always a good place to start) Getting Started Knowledge Base YouTube

Post the plan please. There are some settings that could cause the cameras not to show. Easier on me to look at the plan than to type out a bunch of instructions.

I did not watch the video, but did test the Save Active Camera function. Nothing is supposed to happen visually when you click the button -- it just saves the active camera. When you close and reopen the plan, the saved camera will be there in plan view.

I deleted the upper corner boards, then moved the lower ones into position via the mouse. They can be moved and resized. I blocked the molding together so it would be easy to select, but that should not make a difference. I moved it to floor 3, and aligned it, but also just set it to -130" and it was close.

You will need to draw in an attic wall to fill the space. Turn on the reference display to see the first floor.

Looks good. Noticed 3 things. Turn off Boxed Eve for the porch roof, and on for the main roof it connects to. Turn on Gutter for that main roof plane too. Any more questions on the roof?

I assume by masonry, you are referring to concrete. Running a materials list shows the following.