Smn842

Edit -> Preferences and then the Edit section of that dialog box has the cross hair options

You've got "Rooms" turned off in Tools -> Display Options -> Layer Display Options.

I learnt Home Designer Pro and then Chief Architect Premier as I modelled my house however you have to be careful not to try to get too much done without learning enough. Otherwise you could end up with a lot of re-work as walls and floors can move around and once some items are manually edited/set they are harder to get correct down the line unless you know the product really well. I took the approach of learning the basics of walls and rooms and ignoring almost everything else including doors and windows. That meant I could get core structure correct and once I was happy with than I learnt about doors/windows and roofs and made sure they worked with my walls. I found an issue with the roof generation due to how we construct walls in the UK and how HDP is designed to works with wall layers so I had to edit the layers which moved the walls slightly, but it wasn't hard to fix as my plan was just walls. Every time I need to do something I don't know about I stop, read the help, look at videos and experiment before working on my plan. This has worked well and now I find I am filling in ever smaller gaps in my knowledge and am so glad I didn't speed ahead hoping to fix it all later. There's a lot on you plan and if I were you I would take some time out to learn and then redraw it as that will save time in the long run.

If you post the plan then others can see if they experience similar performance and suggest improvements. Without the plan its just guesswork.

I think you need to clarify your goals. Is it all for fun, or to gain experience with house designing or to learn a specific CAD/Design tool? In my case although I use CA software for non professional purposes, I went with HDP and now Premier because: I wanted to better plan upgrades to my home and use 3D visualisation (ray tracing) to avoid costly mistakes. I needed something that was as productive as possible for my task. I am aware that other products such as the more mainstream Revit may be better in some ways and if I was doing this for professional skills. However Chief Architect products are good for my type of project so that's what I went with even though there are some pain points for European style construction. I do note that there doesn't seem to be a lot of professional tools that have amateur versions, but I think you need to narrow down you aims first. If you're not sure then use what you've got for a while so you know what to look for in another product.

I have been through a similar process this year and ended up starting with Pro in January after considering Architectural. More recently I moved up to Premier X8 despite being a home user just working on my own renovation (I find it fun for some reason ). Chief Architect give fair upgrade prices so you won't lose out starting with Architectural and moving up as required. However I can now say I would have regretted getting a lesser version than Pro to start with as the time to work around limitations is something you don't get back. Now on X8 I am finding myself reworking some areas with the superior features and wishing I had started with it (I never dreamt of spending that amount originally though!). Pro has quite a few more manual tools than Architectural and for me I would have struggled without manual roof control, custom counter tops and some other similar features. So my advice would be if you can afford/don't mind the cost of Pro and want to avoid possibly wasting some time then start there. It will give you a much better and less frustrating experience from the start and if you're doing it partly for interest then that's important. The main reasons that pushed me from Pro to Premier X8 was the ray tracing which has helped with my interior design choices and the ability to build more custom items in CA rather than Sketchup etc. There is a lot more to Premier though than Pro but it still has some annoying limitations especially for European construction (door/window inset, truss design etc) but workarounds are possible. Sadly I found that almost all of the extra catalogs I purchased when using Pro are free with Premier. Hope that helps...

Well after lots of deliberation over CA product limitations relating to UK construction and the challenges with making workarounds in HDP I've upgraded to CA Premier X8. It's a big cost for a single home project especially with current exchange rates so lets hope the time saved is worth it. Given the time I've invested in my plans switching products didn't seem an option. Premier doesn't fix everything but does make workarounds easier. So I'll be complaining about door and window inset control on the chief talk forum soon enough

I was very disappointed today as I finally found time to look at a trial of Chief Architect Premier X8 and it also appears to suffer from the door and window inset and fitting limitations unless I am missing something. Sure it resolves some annoying limitations in HDP but after all the replies to questions on this forum where its stated how easily Premier manages various tasks I had high expectations. It just seems odd to have features such as fine grained wall join control and not be able to put a door at the exact depth in a wall without fiddling with wall types and covering gaps with soffits.

I don't need to save - it's whether I'll get enough return on investment as I am only using it for some minor updates to my own home. I am a software developer hence the comment about modifying symbols as I am always curious to see what file formats applications use. If I get X8 then I'll also end up renewing/upgrading it each year as well so I am trying to exercise some self control .

I would pay for a product version between HDP and X8 (at around double the HDP cost) with some more features but as a user only working on their own home the full X8 is a bit costly. I appreciate the need to keep the two product lines a way apart but though, its just frustrating when you cannot get fundamental items like windows and doors to look like an average house in the UK..

...now if only I could get a standard symbol moved to another layer and exported to calibz which is a compressed Sqlite3 database and then see if I comparing to the original one exported will yield where the flag is in the various CLOB fields given CA originated symbols appear to import to different layers. Seriously though, I've been pondering renting X8 to fix for my numerous imported symbols but not sure if that is hassle for a short time and I would need to do this every six months or so. I wish we had a middle version between the professional and home products but appreciate CA need to keep a number of differences. So for now I'll just keep making copies of plans and deleting things before printing or showing plans to builders and other trades.

I think the key issue is what is a good symbol. Some fail on import for various reasons but many import but can be poor for their given purpose and many are constructed from an extremely high number of polygons. So although on occasion I use a third party symbol as is (usually after rejecting many others) I still find myself editing the source file to resolve issues and reduce polygons on most. I would rather CA spend more time on libraries of their own for sale so they get obvious benefit assuming people purchase. They do have a number but there's a lot not covered - we see requests for various things on the forum including my pet peeve of more European/UK items. Perhaps a survey on what symbols people would like based on a number of categories is a way forward assuming this hasn't already been done

The door and window inset issue issue as well as doors opening through a thicker wall (rather than away from it) has been discussed in a few posts in this forum recently and in the suggestions area so CA should be aware. For users of the professional CA products spending days finding/creating symbols and materials may be fine over a number of projects. However in my case I spent over half the time modelling my house on these limitations and I've not yet finished using soffits to cover cavity gaps around doors and windows. So given for a home owner personal use case its a real pain to spend so much time on these issues and if I had found a less sophisticated product that could get these core details correct I would have gone with it, but I didn't find these problems on a quick trial.

In just modelling my house for some alterations I found a number of annoyances and issues using HDP 2017 (not sure if these are applicable to CA premier): No effective door and window inset control and placement as per UK construction. There are workarounds such as changing layers, short wall sections but these bring their own challenges Lack of UK/European symbols/materials even to purchase - yes alternatives can be found elsewhere and created in Sketchup etc, but its very time consuming. I had to make everything from windows to electrical outlets and with HDP that's an issue as all imported items are on one fixtures and fittings layer. Lots of defaults set to US sizes (larger). These can be changed and used to create another template but again its time consuming. Wall types are flexible enough though and cavity isn't an issue - I have 20+ wall types in my design as the house was built and extended over 40 years and its coped fine with the mix of cavity sizes, brick/block types and solid plaster/plasterboard finishes. In various places I could have done with better wall connection control but that's something I believe is available in CA premier. Overall the door and window issue is my biggest complaint as even with very time consuming workarounds and patching over cavity gaps its impossible to get exactly what I need and I haven't got anything out of the ordinary. It's also a little frustrating that the other items above don't need updates to the application itself, just its symbols and setup. I would also happily pay for some UK specific libraries but there's nothing on the site to buy.

Just to be clear - manual roof control is in Home Designer Pro rather than CA Premier. The 'Pro' name is a poor choice in my opinion as the Home Designer range is not the professional range.