In this cabinet defaults video, I will explain what they are,
how to set and define default values,
explain how a dynamic default works,
and show you how you can import defaults from another plan.
What are cabinet defaults?
Cabinet defaults are properties of the cabinet that control, the size, color,
and accessories.
You can set them in a profile or template plan for each new plan you begin or
you can set them uniquely for a new plan if you know in advance what the cabinet
styling is that you plan to use for that design.
Notice the three cabinets I placed all have attributes I like to use as I begin
the design process. These are my default values for my cabinets.
There are two ways to set cabinet defaults.
The first method is my preferred approach where you make modifications to an
existing cabinet and then use the set as default tool.
Let's take a look with this full-height cabinet. If I resize this cabinet,
browse out to the library, find a new door style,
apply it onto that cabinet,
I can now select the cabinet and in the lower edit menu,
there is a tool called set as default. When you choose that tool,
you'll get a notification that your cabinet defaults have been updated and when
you place a brand new full height cabinet,
it will then have those attributes for your cabinets going forward.
The second approach you can use is to open up the default settings underneath of
the cabinets category. You can change the base, full height,
and wall cabinet along with some of the accessories.
When you open up the dialog,
you can go in and specify any of the settings.
I find this a less visual approach and a little bit slower than my previous
method.
One thing I do like to change in my cabinet defaults is for the general cabinet,
which affects all cabinet related items. In this panel,
you can control what the maximum cabinet width is.
If you're using a smaller cabinet than nine inches, you can type in a value.
If you're going to be using automatic fillers,
I usually recommend you turn that off if you're a kitchen and bath designer,
and a few other settings to create automatic fillers for angled cabinets,
sometimes you may be doing an island or peninsula and they have interesting
angles in there. This will create a filler in there. Usually,
I leave that on and then to create automatic blind corner cabinets,
I usually like to control that myself.
So typically I will have that turned off and when you resize your cabinets,
our cabinets are designed to bump in three-inch increments.
If you'd like to be more precise, you can override that value,
maybe type in one inch and you can specify that in your resize increment right
in here.
And finally at the bottom of the dialog or a couple of display options and this
is an area that you can control only through the general cabinet defaults.
And once I'll set this,
I will typically save these settings in my profile or template plan and then all
my future plans have these settings out of the box for the general cabinet.
In my opinion,
the easiest way to change your cabinet defaults is to take an existing cabinet,
make the changes, the molding, the hardware, the door style,
use the toolset as default, make the change,
and you'll quickly change your cabinet defaults.
Now some of the cabinet defaults can be dynamic.
Let's take a look at this base cabinet and see which defaults are dynamic.
Down in the countertop section,
there's an area down here that says one and a half inches and the D for dynamic
default is listed.
A dynamic default allows you to easily do a search and replace for like objects
and make a change to it. I'm going to show you an example.
This dynamic default interface has changed slightly.
In X10 and prior,
you'll notice that there is a D for dynamic default in this entry box in here.
Beginning with X11 and later,
that dynamic default switches from the letter D with a little check mark next to
the wrench and you can easily toggle that on and off to change your dynamic
default away from it.
Now let's take a look at the way a dynamic default works so it's clear to
understand. To help explain what a dynamic default is,
I've opened up a sample plan.
I have a kitchen designed with the configuration and then a half a dozen
cabinets off to the left that could be used in this kitchen space using the set
as default tool for the first base cabinet.
We set that as a default that will come in and replace all of the dynamic
attributes of that cabinet into the kitchen itself.
You can see the changes that works like a search and replace.
If you've ever used something like Microsoft Word,
you can think of it is searching for the word blue and replacing it with the
word red.
It's a quick way to go in and search and replace for those dynamic items applied
to the cabinet. Let's try the wall cabinet here.
Let's set this as our default cabinet and again it changes anything that's
considered a dynamic default to have those same attributes.
You'll notice that the crown molding did not update.
Not everything in a cabinet is considered a dynamic default.
Those are what would be considered a static default,
meaning that they won't globally change across your project.
That's easily solved by using your eyedropper tool.
You can pick up the color off the cabinet door and apply it onto that molding.
Now just a word of caution about using cabinet defaults and dynamic defaults,
any of the cabinets you may have in other rooms you apply this to and they're
using a default, they will update and it may not be exactly what you desire,
so just be aware that when you set as a cabinet as default or you apply it as
I've done here using the dynamic default,
it may change any of the other cabinets in your entire plan to have those same
attributes. Cabinet defaults can be imported from other plans.
You may have done a project and you have the ideal cabinet in that project and
you want to import it into a new project and that may be a faster approach than
rebuilding the cabinet from scratch.
Let me show you how I can import cabinets from an existing plan into this plan
that we have on our screen.
This is a rendering of the kitchen that I have and I want to import these
cabinet defaults into the plan behind my screen.
The way I can do that is underneath the file menu you'll find an option to
import default settings. From here,
I'm going to browse out to the file that I like. In this case,
it's my contemporary bungalow kitchen plan.
I'm going to find the particular plan that I want to import from.
We'll go ahead and open that up.
You'll be presented with a list of defaults that you can import.
Most of the time I'm after a specific item and I can be very specific in this
case and only import items for the base cabinets.
Notice the change behind the screen and if we zoom in a little bit you can see
that my base cabinets have been updated with the particular settings from that
other plan. Again,
a faster approach than rebuilding those cabinets from scratch.
In a brand new plan. To recap the cabinet defaults,
what they are are properties. You can define for your cabinets.
You can do it two different ways through the visual interface or through the
default settings.
You can save those properties in your profile or template plan,
see other videos on the process for doing that,
or you can set those defaults as you begin a new plan.
If you know about the design ahead of time.
Dynamic defaults can be set and change properties like a search and replace.
And finally,
being able to import defaults from another plan is a quick way to be able to
pull attributes you like from an existing design.
Make sure you refer to our help file and see our other videos on more
information about cabinets and kitchen and bath design.