DavidJPotter

Foundations do not appear by some sort of "Magic", they appear because you told them to appear by way of "Edit - Default Settings - Foundation" being set the way you want and you also have to set Edit - Default Settings - Floor - Structure Tab" the way you intend to build and lastly you set each Room Specification Dialog - Structure Tab to the kind of foundation you want under each room. Once you have done that and you then order a foundation to be built, it then and only then builds. Ever after all that in most titles you can still just draw the foundation walls manually using the wall tools so to sum up if you have no foundation it is because to did not take the steps necessary to create one. DJP

Ditto here, it is an extremely simple plan that performs on my PC as expected. Some of these Knowledge Base Help articles you may find helpful: https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/search/?q=camera+view+problems You should call Chief Architect Tech Support during their Pacific Time office hours and ask them as well. There is no doubt in my mind that the problem is resident in your PC, exactly what, I do not know know. What do you have? DJP

What you are seeing is the direct underside of your roof planes, so set this way that is what you see the bottom of your roof planes. If you require a smoother look sloped soffits is your best answer in Architectural 2015: https://youtu.be/jEDb-M-E0E8 DJP

You may have (I am guessing) set "Edit Default Settings - Room" to "Attic" (why anyone would do that is beyond me but could happen). In any case like Kat said, you can simply open each of the spaces named "Attic" and choose a more appropriate name for the space and then go on and finish what you were doing. DJP

You can emulate thickness by increasing or decreasing the thickness of the "Floor Finish" input box value, that is the only route to altering the floor thickness in Suite, that is better than nothing. DJP

That is completely up to you and what you think fits your situation. I prefer turning them on and off via "Display Options" but that is my sense of "rightness" DJP

There is a 2D CAD "Electric and Audio Legend" that ships with Chief Premier. I do not see why you could not import that into Pro and use it. The only problem I have with it is that it is too extensive (That means that I often have to edit the symbols and text to fit my particular plan). For rather simple plans, I recommend the approach I used when I started using walls and symbols (some electrical symbols will not allow being inserted into anything but a wall, visible or invisible). Also attached is the 2D CAD legend I spoke of. Download the compressed archive to your hard drive, decompress the zip file and then import the .dfx file and add to your library if you like. DJP electric legend.zip

There are in drafting two ways to designate a material: 1. Assign a texture file to your framing so it looks as you expect 2. Using text annotations you specify what the appearance is intended to be Whether or not the texture is or is not actual, your construction notes define the actuality of the apparent material. What you annotate will be followed no matter what it looks like. No one is going to live in your virtual, digital model, its purpose is to guide other professionals to an intended result. DJP

Not meaning to sound snarky but if you are not a State Licensed Structural Engineer it hardly matters (trusses throughout the USA are by law to be designed by State Licensed Structural Engineers). So anything you draw is purely conceptual relative to structural matters). You would have to upgrade to Home Designer Pro to attain complete control over roofs and thus trusses (In this software the program fills the void between roof and ceiling structures with a truss object, so total control over those areas would be paramount to accurately portray trusses. DJP

You can change walls by shift-select, then their Materials Tab - interior- exterior but the best way is to open a single wall -Wall types tab and alter the entire wall type. That way all instances of that wall type are globally changed but you are always best served by changing your Exterior Wall Default settings first as opposed to making changes locally in the plan file. If you want to change the material on only one wall you use its dialog box-materials Tab exterior or interior material setting and it will effect only that one wall. DJP

The second floor is divided into three "rooms" (areas enclosed with walls). They are all set to have a ceiling height of 108". What this does is to force the side walls through the roof, they are trying to follow your orders which do not fit the geometry of the roof). I lowered the ceiling heights of the three rooms to 96" and that action seemed to solve the unwanted artifacts through the roof. DJP

In Architectural after you place a sink it is still resizable, you click on the sink object, hit the tab key to select just the sink object. When it is selected, it will display handles for resizing in terms of width and length. DJP

There are several ways to corrupt material settings, none of which can be determined without access to your plan. There are of course "Default Settings - Materials - Exterior Walls", Default Settings - Wall - Exterior Wall", you could have a problem changing the default material of your exterior walls using the Material Painter or Sprayer without first changing default settings for that wall type. There is also a specialized way to select the entire exterior of a structure and then setting its material using that tool without changing Default Settings - Exterior Walls or Default Settings - Materials - Exterior Walls. New users often just guess as to how to change materials without first studying how to properly use those tools and settings which of course then brings chaos and dismay. This is the most common new user problem. DJP

HD Pro has 2D CAD tools including text, lines, arc's, closed poly-lines, circle and ovoid tools. All other HD titles have fewer such tools. What exactly do you have (HD doesn't communicate very much since there are six or seven different titles per version. DJP

Were I you, I would create a new plan, name it "Electrical Legend" and then place invisible walls in two or more vertical rows and then place electrical objects on the invisible walls with text to the right of each symbol, defining what the symbol represents. Then send that plan view to layout, scaled to fit. Save that plan for future use in other plans. That is how I made my first electric legend back in 1995 and it still works. DJP

You can suggest that Bosch appliances be added as a feature request, that is how things happen or not. They respond to multiple requests. DJP

No, existing keyboard commands are fixed and listed to the "right" of the action in the drop down menus where they exist. In Chief Architect Premier you can create and change keyboard commands but not in any Home Designer title. DJP

Remove the unwanted appliances. Create a cavity in the target cabinet large enough to make room for the intended appliance. Using control Key-drag you then manually place the 3D warehouse appliance into the prepared cavity. Appliance objects that ship with Pro are programmed to interact with cabinets, 3D Warehouse objects are not so programmed so additional steps are necessary to use them. DJP

I would use two custom slabs one set to stainless steel and the other to glass, each set to exact thickness DJP

Read some of these Knowledge Base Help Articles for custom fireplaces: https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/search/?q=fireplace DJP

You draw the shed roof manually. Then in plan view align its ridge with the main ridge. Then open the dialog box of the main roof. Copy the "Ridge" value of the main roof to the Windows clipboard. Open the dialog of the shed roof. Paste the Ridge height value obtained from the main roof into the input box of the shed roof. When that is done both the shed and main roofs will have the same ridge height. You then set the pitch by placing the "Radio Button" beside the "Ridge" input box. This allows you to change the shed roof's pitch without changing its ridge height. This video may help with the above http://djpdesigns.com/roof-dialog.html DJP

Any Home Designer titles have a "half wall" tool, The more you pay the more you can do is the rule. DJP

You create a ".layout" file for each printed page (floor plan.layout, second floor.layout. Elevations.layout, Electrical Plan.layout etc) or as Kat brings up, you can upgrade to Chief Premier. That is the way it is designed to work. DJP

All the professional interior decorators I work with use Chief Premier Interiors due to its additional tools and choices. Chief Premier Interiors supports high resolution Ray Traced renderings for client presentation, Home Designer titles all have a lower resolution rendering capability. All Home Designer and Chief Premier have libraries of editable as to dimensions furniture and fixtures. If you need something beyond what ships with these titles (the more expensive, the more choices and tools) you can augment those selections using imports of symbols and constructs from "3D Warehouse" and other on line resources. Free trial versions of all Home Designer and Chief Premier can be downloaded and tried out before purchase. DJP

The attic ceiling height like any other space is controlled by the ceiling height of the room specification dialog. Like Eric said to facilitate having a room specification dialog you must have a "floor" (if your space is programmed to be specifically "attic" no "rooms" are then possible. Follow the instructions offered in KB-00358 to understand the overall concept of what you intend and then apply what you have learned. DJP