In Part 4 of the "10 Mistakes That Chief Architect Users Make" series, Dan Baumann dives into one of the most overlooked but essential tools in Chief Architect: the right mouse button.

In this video, Dan highlights why the right-click function is a game-changer for workflows in Chief Architect. From navigating contextual menus to optimizing preferences and precisely drawing walls, stairs, and polylines, Dan shares practical tips that can save you time and frustration. He also demonstrates how to customize settings and use the right-click function for bending lines, resizing polyline boxes, and enhancing layout views, making your design process smoother and more intuitive.

What's in it for you?

• Learn how to leverage the right mouse button for faster navigation and editing.
• Discover pro-level tips to reduce everyday annoyances like oversized contextual menus.
• Explore specific techniques to improve your drawing, dimensioning, and object manipulation skills.
• Get a sneak peek at the ProAcademy, where you can take your Chief Architect expertise to the next level.

Whether you're just starting with Chief Architect or you’ve been using it for years, these insights will help you avoid common pitfalls and elevate your design process.

Grab your mouse, and let’s get right-clicking! Watch the video now and see how these tips can transform how you work in Chief Architect.

Transcript:

How many of you use your right mouse button in Chief Architect? I talked to many people who do and a lot who don't. You use your right mouse for many things, such as copying, pasting, etc. You get all these different options when you click on a screen with your right mouse button. You're going to use your right mouse button to do different things in the plan you're working on. Let me show you a couple of things. 

The first one is your pick button. Anything you click on with your right mouse button becomes your pick button. Alright, so now I should set up a key on my mouse to do the next step, which would be open the items dialog box.  

Anytime I click on anything and hit it I'm into the dialog box. Anytime I click on something, I can click on the dimensions. I could click on anything in the plan to move it, grab it, do whatever I want to it.  

Right mouse button. It's your pick button. Keep that in mind. You want to be using that a lot. When you first, get Chief and you right click, you're going to get this menu that drops down. This is called a contextual menu. That menu drives me nuts because it's so big. This list is the same as the list at the bottom of the screen. 

I could use either one to do the functions. I've set up hotkeys, which are part of ProAcademy. Join that in January and I'll teach you how to use those keystrokes and icons to do those functions. 

Let's make a change to preferences. I'm going into preferences. First go to Appearance, and turn this function on. So go to Preferences, Appearance, and turn this on. When you click on something, you want to select it. Because you're going to do some dimensioning. You're going to grab the item and move it. move an edge, and you don't want that menu popping down all the time. Right click twice to get that menu. Alright, that's the setting in Preferences. I like having that on all the time, it makes selecting things easier. 

Next item on our list of things, to, work through would be, mouse settings? So the click twice to show the menu. You click the first time to get the option, second time to get the menu. Then you're going to draw things with your right mouse button. 

So let's go into a plan that I've created. When you draw a wall use your right mouse button. And you'll see how it stays hooked together. It's cool. Try it with a cad line. Draw cad lines with your right mouse button, all right Hook it together then hit escape or Chief will turn it off. Right mouse button is used to draw things, and it's just a different way of drawing.  

Stairs going down, if you want stairs to go down, draw them with your right mouse button, and stairs will go down instead of up. 

If you're drawing stairs from a deck to the grade, the stairs will connect to the grade. Get your terrain in the plan when you draw your stairs going down. That works really well.  

I'll bend lines, bend roads. If you wanted to bend a line, a road, a sidewalk, a stair, all those different things that Chief creates out of a line, use your right mouse button. 

Grab the end with your right mouse button. Hold your control key down while you do it, you release the snapping of that object. Now you want to draw a curved arrow. It's a CAD line with an arrowhead. Break it and drag the end with your right mouse button. You can bend lines with your right mouse button. Another handy tool to work with.  

If you have a polyline box, when you pull the corner, it does that, If you use your right mouse button, it does that, right? That makes it easier to resize polyline boxes. True for layout page viewports as well. When you're on your layout page and want to resize a view, like a picture or a 3D view. Use your right mouse button to resize it and grab the corner for the view. Right mouse button to resize a viewport on a layout page. All in all, 20 functions of a regular mouse. 

You get all of that information when you're part of the ProAcademy.  

That's one of the cool things about working with Chief. There are so many ways to do things. After working with this for so long, talking with many people, and taking classes, I've learned a couple of things. So it's a good time. 

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