Thursday, November 06, 2008

Dept. of Reviteristics - Modify?

There are four ways to "quit" something in Revit. The first and perhaps best way is to just pick another tool/command and do something else. Next (number two) is the ESC key on the keyboard. Sometimes you have to tap the ESC key twice to truly exit a command. Another (number three) is to use the Right Click > Cancel. This also may require using it twice in order to completely exit a command.

Last (number four) is the Modify button...on the Design Bar, the first one at the top of every Design Bar Tab.
Does the word Modify make you immediately think "Quit", "Stop", "Bail Out", "Escape", "Wait", "Let's not do anything now" etc? No? You are not alone. It is something that always puzzled me but I've never questioned, I just accepted it as "the way it is". Probably the best thing to do, but it remains a Reviteristic in my book!

1 comment:

Nick Borgmeyer said...

I imagine it's this way because Revit's interface is designed around using tools (much more like photoshop than AutoCAD). Think of like you were constructing something physically - you wouldn't pick up the "quit" tool if you wanted to stop, you would just decide to stop with whatever tool you might have in hand. In this case "modify" is like having your bare hands ready to grab the next object to modify or tool to modify with.

Maybe the AutoCAD interface is based of a management model of instructing / commanding tasks to be done.

Just my two cents.