Saturday, January 22, 2011

Dept. of Reviteristics - An Opening isn't a Door

I posted THIS in April of 2010 but it's been a recurring question for many years.

Responding to a recent question, the Cased Opening family provided by Revit is assigned to the Category: Generic Models because many architects do not want these included in door schedules. At the time is seemed like an easy way to segregate them, yet when they shipped them they put them in the same folder with doors. New users for years have been clicking Door to add their newly loaded cased openings and been flummoxed when they aren’t there.

It might have been more appropriate to put them in the Door category and use a parameter value to filter them out of a schedule. They picked a solution and here we are.

Another issue we all face before we know, the where to find things can get fussy, like a Refrigerator. Ask ten people where they’d expect to find one and if none of them have any Revit background you probably won’t get a single "in Specialty Equipment > Domestic".

In my earlier post I vented a bit about a better way to place components. We still don't have any "factory" supplied solution. Kiwi Codes Family Browser however is a pretty elegant way to go and if Autodesk isn't paying attention to it, they should be! They've got some new features either about to be release or have just, check them out!

3 comments:

Custom LAN/WAN Applications said...

Yeah, You are right, just an opening is not a Door..
thank you for the post..

Aaron Maller said...

We are extensively using it, and the new features coming in v3 are enough that i expect it to become even more widely used in our office.

Heck, all it is, is the Design Palettes from ACA, except its WAY EASIER to compile, way easier to update office wide, and not part of the native UI.

How i wish they would get on with it, and mimic it. :)

Dennis Nelson said...

This is defiantly at the top of my list of areas that need drastic improvement. The finding for components is one long list is so time consuming it's not even funny. With the 2010 version and the ribbon the type selector was suppose to be easier, but I think they have in fact made it worse. The single list is now longer. This is especially noticeable at the end of the project when I have to wade through 100's of families and types just to get the one I need.