What's new in DimSum.

Pitch

• Give the Joist tool a pitch: type 6/12, 6 or 26.57°. On a pitched item the edge you click is the eave, and the rafters run uphill, square to it.
• Rafter length is worked out from the plan length and the pitch, with Rise, Ridge Elevation and Pitch Factor alongside.
• A slope arrow (“6/12”) shows on the plan and in print. Flat floors work exactly as before.

Overhang

• An overhang, measured flat on the plan, pushes the eave out (or a floor’s joist ends), and the rafters or joists, the fascia and sub-fascia, and the sheathing all follow the new edge.
• Overhang edges… picks which edges get it. The drawn line shows dashed.
• An overhang past a beam below works as its cantilever.

The Rafter Tool

• Ready to place from the built-in tools: 2x6 at 16” on center, 6/12, a 12” overhang, sub-fascia on the eaves and roof sheathing on top.

A correction

• A cutout that crosses an area’s edge now takes away only the part inside the area, so subfloor or sheathing can go up slightly in older jobs.

• A live section in Tools → Assembly: a to-scale cut through the joists, rim, subfloor and ceiling drywall, each layer dimensioned, with the total and the level line highlighted. Zoom, pan and fit.
• Change it as you watch: swap a member’s material (2x10 to 2x12 to I-joist to truss), its thickness, elevation or order, or switch it off. The section and a 24’ × 14’ test floor (joists, rim and sheets) update at once.
• Pick the level line: choose which line is the level’s elevation. By default it’s the bottom of the joists.
• Members follow their base: the rim board follows the joist depth on its own.
• Ceiling drywall comes with the Joist Tool as a member below, switched off until you want it.
• Placed floors get their own section and settings in Properties.

Fixes

• A memory problem that could crash DimSum on very large pages.
• CSV imports no longer drop the first row when the file has no group row.
• Edited tool copies always get a new version, so your jobs are offered the update.

• Rim goes round every cutout, its corners join, and the joists through the hole stop at the rim.
• A cutout that crosses an outer edge, like a notch, has its rim trimmed to the floor and butted into the outer rim.
• To leave a hole without rim, turn its edges off with Rim Board edges…, the same as any other edge.
• What you’ll see in older jobs: rim now shows round their cutouts, and the joists through each hole are 1½” shorter at each new board.

The Joist Tool is an assembly

• Rim Board is its own tool, drawn on the joist area’s edges. Each piece is its own item: select it, label it, or break a piece out into an ordinary item. A broken-out board still stops the joists.
• Corners join like walls, with no gaps, inside corners included. An inside corner counts the true board length.
• Subfloor is its own area on top of the joists, linked to the joist area.
• New snaps on the rim: corners, faces, ends and the centreline.
• Each member hides on its own and keeps its own labels and estimating lines.

Edit it all from one place

• A joist area’s Properties has a Linked group for its rim board and subfloor, so you can edit the members without hunting for them.
• Tools → Assembly shows a tool’s members. Copy the Joist Tool’s assembly and make it yours: add or remove members, and change where they sit and at what elevation.

Your existing jobs

• They convert when opened, with the same counts. Only rim length can grow, by the true length at inside corners.

Rim all the way round

• A joist area from the built-in Joist Tool now gets rim on every outer edge, not just the edges the joists run into.
• On each side with rim, the rim takes the edge joist’s place. A 24’ × 14’ area is now 17 joists of 13’-9”, with 6 pieces of rim.
• A new Joist tool setting, Default Rim Edges, picks All edges or Joist ends only. You can still turn any edge on or off by hand.

Flush beams

• A flush beam whose top lines up with the joists’ top now attaches on its own, with hangers, just as it does when the bottoms line up. That works for a deeper beam, and for a shallower one such as a 2x8 header flush with 2x10 joists.
• When neither face lines up, DimSum tells you which one is nearer and by how much.

Your existing jobs

• Existing jobs and your own copies of the Joist tool keep Joist ends only. Jobs placed with the built-in Joist Tool are offered the update, which you can take or skip.
• A beam already in a job with its top lined up attaches when the job opens. Detach it if you don’t want that.

• Fixes a rare crash in the installer when it runs in the background, which is how automatic updates install.
• Every release is now test-installed in the background before it goes out, so this can’t slip back in.
• Nothing else changed. 0.5.341 installs this update on its own.

Updates arrive on their own

• DimSum checks for updates when it starts and every 4 hours, and downloads them in the background. Offline, it waits until you’re back online.
• When an update is ready, Restart to update appears in the top bar. DimSum saves and closes your job, installs the update and opens the same job again. Or it installs the next time you close DimSum.
• Never mid-job: while you’re drawing or a dialog is open, it waits until you’re done.
• System Settings → About / Updates shows your version, when DimSum last checked, a Check now button and What’s new.
• Pick an update channel: Stable (the default), or Beta to get new versions first.

Installing

• DimSum now installs just for you, so Windows doesn’t ask for an administrator’s Yes, now or for any update.
• The installer isn’t code-signed yet. If Windows SmartScreen warns you, choose More info, then Run anyway.
• If you had an older copy installed for all users, it stays until you remove it in Windows Settings → Apps. Your settings, libraries and recent jobs are shared, so nothing has to move.

Your jobs don’t change.