New_Bee

You may be looking for THIS LINK? Click "Upgrade" and it will give you the option you are looking for, I believe?

Please post to let us know if upgrading your hardware helps. I am particularly interested in this. You did mention it is a laptop - gaming laptop, but still a laptop. While I do not upgrade my computers often, I did grow tired of using a laptop over a year ago. I ended up bringing a custom built desktop back with me, when I returned from the US last March. I did that, primarily, because I don't trust computer guys here in Cambodia, to work on my computers. (Previous experience from where they tried to rip me off by attempting to steal parts from a laptop.) I may be wrong here. But, wouldn't a desktop computer have more available hardware upgrades, typically, than a laptop? I have seen some pretty high end video cards that I would think may help improve this issue? What I am thinking here is, you mentioned the laptop having 16 gigs of RAM. But, what sort of RAM are you running on your graphics card? I would think that would be more of what to look at? Just another view here.

I just received a notification that an upgrade is available, offered to me for $40.00 USD. Can anyone point me to where I can compare 2016 with 2017? Or, can someone possibly let me know what, if anything, has changed / been added / improved from v2016 to v2017?

Since Home Designer doesn't convert files automatically, I figured I would upload a little utility that you can keep on your desktop. It will convert just about anything you can think of, including area and distance and a slew of other conversions. You "metrically challenged" folks came to mind, causing me to upload this file. I have been using this software, on and off, for over ten years. Give it a try. It even has a custom convert tab, where you can set up your own conversions. convert.zip (convert.exe, v4.10)

Thanks for posting the video. It helped me with a small issue I was having with a deck. I also learned something new when you stated changing the names of the room from "porch" to "deck". I didn't realize that could cause such drastic changes in the plan.

Thanks, LawB10. I learn a lot faster once I have something to go by, so I can see where my errors were. This helped me very much. You didn't say that before, though. You said just go by what someone else posted. In this case, Mr. Potter. That did not work for me, for whatever reason(s). I had to go about it another way, but still was unable to get the roof to show properly. While you "seasoned" folks using these various programs can build floor plans in your sleep, us newbies may have a bit of trouble at first. It may take some of us - it certainly does me, a bit to catch on to these various settings and sort. So, please try to be patient with us, me for sure, if you can. Granted, I do spend a fair amount of time with this program. I am just trying to design and build something, even if it is only a small home for my loved one, so she will have a place to live and not have to depend on anyone, after I am gone. Thank you all, for your input.

That didn't work. I did, however, get the roof built. I found the option in specifications. Just overlooked it previously. Now, the only issue I have is how to raise the height of this roof? Can either of you tell me how to adjust the height of this particular roof? I have the angle where I want it, I believe.

Well, my intention was to do as I had done with the other "walls" in the plan, to build the roof. But, when I highlighted the deck, it didn't give me a "roof" option??

How can I add this section of roof to a plan? I have tried everything in the book - so to speak. I was able to sort out the wall sections to make a shed roof - surprisingly, I may add. But, I can't get the section of roof to generate over the deck. Thanks.

I agree. So many steps shouldn't have to be completed just to convert a plan. That, along with other rebuilds would be completely unnecessary if this could be accomplished. I can only imagine trying to convert a large plan. I'm actually surprised more members haven't suggested this in the past, to possibly encourage the company to add this ability. Perhaps, the vast majority of users are in the US? Who knows? Either way, thanks again, for your input and time.

Well, with more of us suggesting it, maybe they will eventually add it as an option. While it is fine and good to learn the software - I use it almost daily to learn it to design my own little rest house in the province, adding a convenience such as this could possibly improve sales, especially if their competitors (whomever they may be) do not offer this feature in their products. Also, this is not too much of a headache for me, as I will do just that - view the standard plan and manually draw each dimension to metric. But, what about a complex drawing? You could be looking at some serious time, possibly very valuable time to the user, that could be saved just by the click of a button.

Thanks for all the replies. Well, I guess that is even more of a reason to have offered it as a "suggestion", to add it as a feature to this software. Maybe the developer gods will hear my request.

Thank you, again, Mr. Potter. I will try this and see if it works for me. This seems to be something that could be a software improvement suggestion, me thinks. (I think I will do just that.) It shouldn't be that difficult to be able to add a feature in the software, allowing the user to switch between metric and standard measurements on a plan.

I am American who happens to live in a metric world, and have for going on two decades. So, standard, typically, doesn't work well for me as it did while I lived stateside. While looking around, I find some plans started using standard measurements that I would like to convert. But, either I am missing something in the search, or it isn't possible to do in HDA 2016? Can anyone address this issue for me, please? So far, I love the software and what I am learning by using it.

Yeah, pretty much. 1 floor downstairs, for storage, parking, rainwater harvesting tanks, solar battery and power house, etc. I will load the file now, to see. Thank you.