compatibility

[kittyprrrs]

I have a file here that I want to use at another friends house (whom has Interior Designer) and well, the reason why is because my Home Designer has PLUMBING but NO CABINETS! So, I asked my friend who has the Interior Designer if she has cabinets in her library and she said yes. I asked her to send the .alb file zipped. Only, it is incompatible with my Home Designer Suite 6. So, I take the plan on a disc, over to her house to open the file there and ADD cabinets...only, it wont save it back to my .PL1 and will save ONLY as PLAN (which I believe Home Designer Suite will not open nor support) which will work with my Landscaping and Deck Designer which also does not have PLUMBING or CABINETS...

Is there a reason they made these programs almost incompatible with each other (for instance, upgrade to Chief Architect?). Is there a way around this? I've tried "force" saving the PLAN as PL1 but, hah...didn't work.

Any suggestions...so totally appreciated. So far, this is not making me want to spend any more money on other programs if I have to recreate the same plan..over and over and over again....help?

Seeing as I already spent money on the Landscaping portion and now the Home Designer..if they wont support each other then why would I want to purchase the Interior Designer portion? The reason why these programs sell is because they are supposed to be user friendly without having too much knowledge in CAD. I prefer using these programs because rendering doesn't suck up all my computer's resource like 3DMax....which...OUCH!

If anyone from CA is reading this, will there be a fix for the incompatibility issues anytime soon or is there a fix for this?

[RootFarm]

Are you saying your version of HD does not have a cabinet tool?

[kittyprrrs]

It does just not as many as the "Interior Design" has. The interior designer program has different styles like Arts & Crafts, Traditional, Modern Traditional, Modern....Urban....

Mine only has Breadbox with drawers and very few rather sad looking pieces.....

Sorry...I guess I should have mentioned that...I would just rather have the more elaborate cabinets is all.

[RootFarm]

OK. Well, I have no idea if your plan would still display properly or remain editable if it was edited on one of the other products. May be somebody else will know.

Good luck.

[kittyprrrs]

thanks anyways....

anybody?

[Dan Park]

Interior Designer is based off the version 7 series. Home Designer 6 is older and would not be able to read the .alb file extension. If you get Deluxe 7.0 you would have access to all the libraries contained in interiors and also be able to download other libraries from our website.

You should be able to create most cabinet styles by editing the cabinet. You could create a plan file with these cabinets and copy them from that plan into other plans you might be creating.

Check our our customer appreciation sale in the announcement section. If you order by July 5, 2006 you can upgrade to Deluxe for $49

[kittyprrrs]

thank you DAN!

Will go there as soon as I have the funds!

[richdell]

Dan,
I can't find an "announcement section", nor any mention of a "customer appreciation sale". Please advise where I should look, as I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to upgrade.
Thanks

[Kilgore Trout]

All of the programs, as far as I can tell, are compatible as long as they are the same version. All of the newer programs can read the older versions but the older versions can't read the newer ones. This is how a lot of software works so it really isn't that big of a surprize.

All of the version 6 based products use the .pl1 extension for the plans and all version 7 products use .plan. Version 7 products can read .pl1 files but it can't write them. Once you open an older plan in version 7 and then save it, it can't be read by version 6. So if you start a plan in Suite 6 you can then open it in Landscape 7 or in Interior 7 but if you save it, you can't open it in Suite 6.

As for the various cabinet styles, I think you have them all in Suite 6 but you just won't find them in the library. If you are working in a plan and you want a different cabinet type, all you need to do is copy it from one plan to another plan. Just open up a new plan using the style template you want and then place a cabinet in it. Now you can just copy the cabinet in the plan you want. If you want to get clever, just make a new plan and call it something like All Cabinets and put one of each cabinet style in it. Then you will always have one place to get any cabinet you want.

[Dan Park]

You have to be signed into this forum before you will see the announcements section.

[JohnTSmith]

Annoucements
http://hometalk.homedesignersoftware...isplay.php?f=4

[kittyprrrs]

Kilgore-THANK YOU! I found it! I found it! You were right, they are not under libraries....so what I ended up doing was like you suggested, create sink with a 'blah' base and then open it in Interior design. I then just 'fixed' the look of the cabinet door and bam...it looked like the rest of the cabinets. I then copy and pasted....and OMG...it worked! Thank you...seriously I was bashing my head against the desk...I knew there was a way but...I could not find the cabinet in Home Design! Omg...thank you...my husbands client thanks you!

Should you ever have any questions about PS, Illustrator....DW...any...macromedia/adobe programs..ask away! I am humbled and will aid you in return...

Thanks!