Wish - Release Type Catalogs after Loading a Family

Revit needs to release the Type Catalog files after loading a family that use them.

That message makes the process of updating a type catalog tedious at best if you have to close Revit completely to release it so it can be edited, very inefficient. There was a brief period of time when Revit did release the file as it should, but that ended with 2018 if I recall correctly.

Five Minutes with Shape Editing a Bay Roof

I posted this screencast in response to a thread at the Autodesk Forums. Figured I might as well share it here too. I used shape editing to create the bay roof condition shown in this image.

It's based on an image of a DWG roof plan that was shared in the original post in the discussion. The sketches of the main and bay roofs look like the following image. It also shows the sketched Split Line elements I added to make raising the bay ridge up easy.

Here's the screencast I created to post at the forums.


FWIW, I made the main roof partially transparent so I could see the walls more easily. In the video I commented about using the Two Cut Plumb setting with a 12" value. The Shape Editing disables that for the bay roof but it did start out with that setting in play so it all worked out as I intended even though I was confused about it at the time.

Trim Multiple and Multi-Select

I find that I consistently forget this is possible, to use a crossing window to select more than one element to trim or extend multiple elements at once. Don't forget Steve! Maybe now that I've written that I'll start remembering more often, hopefully. The following video is just the tooltip video that runs if you hover over Trim Multiple long enough.

Revit Viewer and Worksharing

Reading a thread at Autodesk's Revit Community forum David reminded me of the quirky issues related to the Viewer when worksharing is being used. If someone launches Revit Viewer and then tries to open a project that has enabled worksets they'll get this warning.

When the file is opened and they try to print, export or save they'll get this warning even though they haven't DONE anything...but Revit has made changes to the file in order to create a new local file.

Okay, let's follow the instructions in the first warning message. We'll open the project using Detach from Central. Sorry, "Do not pass Go, do not collect $200". That process also changes the file. Still no export, save or print for you!

The ONLY way we can use Revit Viewer to open a project with Worksets enabled is to open the Central File itself, by un-checking the option to Create New Local. This means that user is now working on the real central file with Revit Viewer.

If you do this you will likely encounter several of the messages shown in the first image. The projects I've done this with all have linked files and it seems to pop up for each link (RVT) used and once more if there are any linked/imported DWG files.

To the good, they won't be able to synchronize their work nor will it prompt them to Save when they close the file. They won't be able to edit much of anything though because they can't borrow elements. The notion of using Revit Viewer to poke around the model, do some experimental stuff within the model is off limits to Viewer mode. We are able to print or publish to DWF, because those formats don't create an editable version of the data/model.

It seems to me that the notion of Revit Viewer for workset projects is fundamentally flawed, if we're thinking of it as a way for Project Managers to poke around, do anything other than JUST LOOK at views. If we'd like them to be able to cut a section view or hide things, do anything that requires temporarily borrowing something, that's all off limits to the Viewer.

For that we'll have to show them how to use Detach from Central AND to be careful not to save that file overwriting the original project.

Text Box Boundary Quirk

I read a thread at AUGI describing an issue where the Show Border option to create a box surrounding text fails to completely surround the text it contains. First, if you weren't aware of it, each Text type has a type parameter called Show Border.

The Show Border feature worked fine until I used the Underline override to put a line under the NOTES: heading. It also happens if I use any of the other overrides; Bold or Italic.

I created the following video to show what happened.

Seems easy enough to resolve, just use separate text for the heading. Unfortunately I found that Show Border fails to work properly if the text is altered later too. Just adding a new line to the text is enough to confuse the border/box. Sadly this means the concept of Show Border is fatally flawed...

Group Editing and Ceiling Hosted Elements

Aaron Maller let me know about an unpleasant bug he's encountered in both Revit 2015 and 2016. If you're thinking, "Boy I'm glad I didn't listen to Steve's rant yesterday." Point taken... It's the exception though, not the rule.

Simple steps to reproduce the issue:

• Create a new project
• Create a ceiling
• Place at least two light fixtures (faced based or ceiling based)
• Create a Group (of the ceiling and both fixtures)
• Copy the Group to create several instances
• Edit the Group
• Swap or move one fixture
• Finish the Group

Where did the other fixture go? It (they) is (are) Excluded. If you select the Group you'll see Restore All Excluded appear on the ribbon. If you use that tool you'll find the fixture is no longer hosted by the ceiling though. It will report in it Host parameter.

If you'd like to avoid this issue then:

• Edit the Group
• Make the changes you need
• Select all the fixtures
• Nudge Up and Nudge Down to put them back in the same spot
• Finish the Group

The copies should be intact, no excluded elements.

I've also found that I can use Save Group, edit the Group in its own file and then use Reload to refresh the Group in the project. This doesn't seem to suffer from the same affliction. Take it slow if your project is using a lot of groups with ceilings. The issue doesn't seem to affect elements hosted to walls, not in the testing I've done so far at least.

Here's a video example of what happens and using Nudge to avoid it.

Wish - Copy, Rotate and Mirror Sub Elements

I really wish I could copy Split Line or Point while using Modify Sub Elements. It's really quite silly that I have to sketch or pick to place these things over and over (and this is a 2016 image...so no joy there either).

IF Formulas and Notepad

A good tip was shared (by Josephpeel) at RFO the other day. If you use a Tab or Line Break in Notepad to make it easier to understand a lengthy conditional formula they won't affect the formula when you paste it into Revit.

Just make sure you put the closing parenthesis on the last line, as shown in the image. Revit doesn't seem to understand the copy/paste formula properly if you put them on their own line (at least that's my finding).

Move with Disjoin

Using the Move tool and checking Disjoin is equivalent to "cut to clipboard" (in effect delete) and then "paste from clipboard". This is necessary to break a wall or line away from other walls or lines that may be connected. Without Disjoin the other walls or lines will attempt to stretch to stay connected.

It is not really just moving the existing elements but recreating them in a new location. This means the elements will get new Mark parameters, assuming Revit numbers them automatically, like doors for example.

If you really need to separate walls or lines (ducts or pipes too) you can move without using the Disjoin option and then manually pull the other elements away from the wall using their own grips instead. A bit more work but maybe less than renumbering elements?

Something to keep in mind.

Dept. of Subtle - No Edit Family Option?

Received a query today about a project that wouldn't offer their users the Edit Family option when they selected a window or door tag family. Turns out that the project file in use was a pretty old file that had been upgraded for many releases of Revit. The option to initiate editing a family from within the project hasn't always been available to us.

When it did become available there was a requirement that any families created in earlier releases had to be upgraded to the current release before the Edit Family feature would become available. The issue was that the window and door tags had never been upgraded and reloaded. When newer versions were loaded to replace the existing ones the good old Edit Family button returned!