Can't change a default setting because dialogue box is greyed out.

[Keith_K]

The dialogue box thing for my Normal Room Defaults is greyed out and I am unable to make a change to a check box that needs to be done. I have tried to find ways of deleting the whole thing but that doesn't seem possible. How do I make this accessible?

[BB boy]

Keith, if I understand it correctly, editing room defaults can only be done by going to a specific floor, then selecting edit, default settings, floor (in lieu of normal room). I suggest you try that and experiment see if that does what you need. After that, you would open each individual room (should see your edited defaults) and at that point you can change each room's ceiling height (at least I think that's the way it's supposed to work).

[Keith_K]

Thanks for your reply. I understand what you are saying but the problem is that various rooms once again have different settings in the room setting dialogue, My floor default settings are as I want them to be but I am unable to get all the rooms to have the same defaults because, as previously, if I change them they just go back to the wrong ones when I click out of the room.

Since the previous problem was supposedly solved earlier this week (my scratching of head thread) all I have done on the plan was to add some staircases and insert some windows and doors. I haven't been anywhere near the default settings to change anything there but they've changed nonetheless.

It was only when I finally noticed the changes in the room settings on the plan that I went to the default settings to see what was going on, saw an incorrectly checked box in the Room Default settings and found that I couldn't change it because it was greyed out. Hence this thread because it is the only one of my default dialogues that isn't accessible any longer and I can't help but wonder why, and why I can't "un-grey" it.

But tomorrow is another day.

[Kbird]

Just checked my Normal Room defaults and it shows just like yours on my "playplan" though I do have a General and Materials Tab too which I don't see on your image....

where are you working? just curious cos I haven't ever seen 2600mm high rooms or 8mm drywall anywhere , as standard....

you don't say what you are trying to change , so not sure I can help much more, did you try in the Floor defaults instead?

M.

[Keith_K]

I live in England. The rough ceiling height is 2600 mm and the finished ceiling height is meant to be 2400 mm so that electrical and IT cabling can be routed through it but I am not allowed to show it like that and will have to make the adjustment if and when I ever get to the section stage of this plan. And 8 mm plasterboard is what the software stuck there, not me.

I am trying to change the c-up that seems to have occurred between the floor specifications and the room specifications so that the information tally on both so that they don't go to war with each other as is happening at the moment. Spot the differences on the two images below. Were I allowed access to the rooms defaults it would be a piece of cake to achieve this, but as I'm not...

I have tried to make all the rooms use the floor defaults which, for some reason don't always show what is actually entered in the the Floor Default dialogue in all rooms. I have tried to make the "wrong" ones accept the defaults but they just change back to what they were when I click out of the room.

I am trying to reconcile myself to scrubbing all the hours of work that I have done on this plan (which is for a 3350 square metre, 3 storey office block), deleting it and starting all over again but I don't seem to be able to conjure up the will/enthusiasm to do so and will probably just give up and confine myself to drawing garden sheds and one room dwellings.

[Keith_K]

Right. You can tell me if I need to take myself off to a padded cell in the nearest asylum. It wouldn't be the first time that such an innuendo was made and your suggestion will just run off my back like water off a duck's.

But...

...This morning when I woke up I had an idea which I proceeded to act upon. While the room layout of my floor 2 (currently still in the state of being just the outline of all the external walls) will be markedly different to that of floor 1 (which is the floor giving me all the grey hairs), using the reference display tool I traced all the walls etc from floor 1 into floor 2 so that I now have a "carbon copy" of what floor 1 currently looks like after all the work I have done on it.

Now, here is the question: If I go to floor 1 and delete everything I have done on it thus leaving the page "blank" will I then be able to go to the default settings for that floor, redo them as they should be and then create a new floor 1 from floor 2, in other words the reverse of what one would normally do when designing upward and creating upper floors? All I really need from this exercise is to be able to do the default settings properly for floor 1 so if creating floor 1 again using floor 2 won't work in reverse I don't mind doing the reference display/tracing exercise using floor 2 as the template.

What I don't want to do is think that my idea will work, try it and then discover that I have made a bigger mess of the whole thing than it currently is in. "Fools rush in....etc"

Sage words of advice will be welcome.

[JoAnn]

Save your plan as a 'save as' plan and give it a new name. Do ALL of your experimenting on this new plan. The original plan is still intact. No new gray hairs!

[Keith_K]

Great minds think alike.

I thought of that while I was having my supper this evening and will give it a go tomorrow.

[Keith_K]

Oh well, that didn't work. Had to redraw the internal walls using the "tracing" I made. Still unable to get into the Room Default settings so they continue to mess with the Floor Default settings etc. etc. etc.



After last week's minor issue I don't somehow think I'd be very welcome if I asked Tech Support to see if they could sort out the mess so I am very, very sad to say that I have now given up and have made the decision to scrap the whole office block thing.

It was an exciting and challenging project for me but I'll think very carefully as to whether I want to start it all over again. At my time of life I can do without silly little hassles that should be easily solvable (as they would be if the Room Defaults weren't greyed out) but which, when you come to the nitty-gritty, actually aren't and resulting in my blood pressure soaring.

[Katalyst777]

Just seconding what BB Boy already said because I'm not quite sure you understood.

Room Defaults only show those options greyed out as reference, you're only supposed to be able to change materials in that dialog (Help explains this better), not check boxes or make changes to values.

Floor Defaults, based on the floor you are active on, is where you'd go to make changes to the values which are greyed our in Room Defaults.

[Kbird]

admittedly this software can get frustrating and taking a break and walking away helps at times learning all the "workarounds" is a never ending process....

I too use the save as button regularly so can always step back a day or two if needed and not lose all the work done to that point....

your Normal Room Defaults via edit>defaults>Rooms>Normal room>Ceiling finish button should let you set the plasterboard to 12mm or 15mm (fire rated?) or whatever you want and there is and option on that DBX to "frame lowered ceiling" and set the measurement too.

Have you built the foundation/slab yet?

M.

[Keith_K]

@ Katalyst777 - I do understand what BB Boy said in that the Floor Defaults is the master, the Room Specification Defaults the slave and the Normal Room Defaults the thorn in the side, as it were. Which is why I don't understand (if you look at the two images I have posted above) why the Normal Room Default has decided to ignore the fact that the Floor 1 defaults state in the floor tick box section that the "floor is supplied by the foundation room below" and has "Floor under this room" checked instead. To be honest I don't remember setting any defaults in "Normal Room" but however that information got there it is now impossible to change and perhaps should be ignored.

However I still think that the incorrect information in the Normal Room default is what is causing the problem when I try and make changes in the Room Specification dialogue as BB Boy suggested. You will see from the image below that while the details should be as per the Floor 1 defaults the "Floor to SWT (H)" differs from the 0 mm it is supposed to be and is set at 400 mm. If I place a check in the default box alongside it it will change to the correct setting until I click out of that room. Then if I click on that room again it has changed back to the incorrect 400 mm again. It is this that is causing all the frustration.

@ Kbird - yes. I do that after I have done the external walls for Floor 1.