Is there a way to turn of the 'side of chain?" option when entering an offset. I swear I used to be able to click on the side of the entity that I wanted the offset to appear on, instead of entering it ahead of time as 'side of chain'.

If you are using V23 then you need to choose what side to offset from the dialog box.

Same with V22. It's not a big deal. I think the choice select buttons makes it more user-friendly and intuitive for people learning the software. I'd rather see a cross-hair than a arrow mouse pointer for selecting, but that's not a big deal either. I'm not going to sweat the small stuff...