Two Lines in Schedules

You may be aware that we can force a schedule field to use a new line by pressing Shift + Enter. This permits you to enter new information on a second line but once you finish editing the cell Revit will only show the single row. When the schedule is placed on a sheet you'll see both lines or how ever many you force it to use.

If you do this and need to edit the information again you'll need to use the Left Arrow key to advance the cursor to the next line(s). It's a little quirky. With the lack of fidelity between sheet and schedule editing view you'll also have to experiment with the width of columns to get them look correct on sheets.

Hopefully its obvious but I'll mention it anyway, this Shift + Enter only works on fields that we type values into not those that are calculated or based on other value supplied by the elements themselves, like Family, Type, Height, Width etc. Technically you might be able to enter something but it will still have to provide an acceptable result to the family itself.

Dept. of Bugs - Closing a Schedule Before Updating a Field

Ran into this one today. Here's the scenario:

View List - Using it to update View Names - Edit the View Name field but before advancing from the field when you are done close the view instead. Hoping that it would fill in the value and let me get back to the plan. The expected message about renaming levels and views appears.

Then the unexpected SaveAs or Exit Dialog of Death.

On further experimentation I see that changing the Type Comments value in a door schedule will cause the same result.

The "quick fix" is DON'T CLOSE a schedule until you have committed the edit to the schedule by moving the cursor to another field and responding to the error message that appears. This is in the same vein as "Doc, it hurts when I do this!". Doc says, "Well don't do THAT!".

I suspect that the issue is related to the User Response dialog's that appear. It seems that Revit doesn't like trying to commit the change to the element while the schedule view window is attempting to close. It also happens in each version of Revit.

Here's a quick video to see it in action.

Math - Data Entry

Various parameters types will accept mathematical equations as valid data. This means you can do some "math" within a parameter instead of figuring what the value you need is elsewhere and then enter it into Revit. To do so you must enter the equal sign (=) first followed by the formula.

As an example: I have three items that need to fit within an available space that is 12 feet wide. I'd like the middle item to be centered between the other two. Yes, I could add a dimension between just the three elements and use the EQ control. But less obvious perhaps and the reason for this post is that I can enter a calculation into the dimension field instead.


Formula is this: =((12'-5')-2.5')/2
In plain english:

Overall Space minus two Desk Widths minus one Desk Width divided by two

The result:

Yes it is easier in this case to do this instead...just discussing possibilities.

Schedule Data Entry - Bug? Wierd?

Lately I've been seeing a recurring issue that could probably fit under or in my Dept. of Subtle. I need a bit more evidence to be sure it is a bug, though my "gut" says it is.

While editing a schedule and clicking in a field to type something I find that occasionally Revit won't let me enter anything. I've seen this on student computers at several offices and it happened again to me today on my new Laptop. The computer brand and configurations have been all over the map so I don't think it is a specific computer hardware sort of problem, though I thought so at first.

In order to resolve it I find that I must use the "Home" or "End" key to force Revit to move the cursor "into" the field. When I do that all is well for some period of time. It happened twice in one day but then not again. Wierd, strange...odd. I say all three.

If I get any more corroboration it would be useful to get some support requests looking at it.