Revit 2018 - Insert Ribbon Search Field is Removed

When Autodesk Seek gave up on their mission and handed it over to BIM Object Revit 2017 started to redirect us to that site instead whenever we did a search. Prior to that it would take us to Autodesk Seek.

Notice anything missing from the 2018 Insert Ribbon image above? Well the post title gave it away but the search field has been stripped off. Remember this following image from way back when?

I realize it didn't make sense to leave references to Autodesk Seek in play. Now it's even less helpful to find external content. I guess it's more incentive to install BIM Object's Revit app? Probably what they intended.

No you're not imagining things, it's gone gone gone...

-- EDITED 5/2/2017 --

I installed the BIM Object Revit app.

Holy smokes that's a heck of a ribbon for the primary button I really want, Browse on the far left. Note if you launch any of the tools you can't do any work back in Revit until you finish interacting with their app. If you find that frustrating you could just open a separate browser.

It would be nice if there were some user settings to reduce the number of buttons to just those you're likely to use. I added the browse button to the QAT to get around accessing the ribbon tab each time.

Finding Families - IDs of Selection

When we need to track down a family that might be loaded into one or more project files we can use master schedule project that includes links for all the relevant project files. If one of the project files already has links to all the others then we can just use that one for this instead.

A schedule focused on the relevant category that also uses the option Includes elements in links can be quite useful.

It can help us track down which models and how many there are in each of them. A little clever use of the Filter tab in the schedule can be a big help. Once we've figured out where the family is we can deal with each of them in each project.

We can search through the Families branch of the Project Browser and then use the right click option for Select all Instances in Entire Project.

Now I can reach for IDs of Selection.

Revit provides a list of Element ID numbers for each family.

It is not unusual for the list to be quite long so I often reach for Notepad (or better still Notepad++...which reminds me I need to install it on this new PC). I use CTRL+C to copy the element IDs to the clipboard and then CTRL+V in Notepad. Notice the commas between the Element ID numbers.

In Notepad I can be selective about which ones to start examining more closely. I just select one or more of the element IDs and then use Select Element by ID (CTRL+C and CTRL+V again in reverse).

Notice the instruction in parenthesis (in the image below)? It says to use a semicolon between the numbers but Revit used commas earlier. Odd.

...and...believe it or not, this is the reason I decided to write this post... commas work too. Yeah, that's definitely subtle.

As for the element hunting and selecting process, I'll be interested and waiting to see what sort of Dynamo approaches pop up in comments.

Search the Project Browser

Just a little reminder, don't forget you can search the Project Browser!! Forget what you named a family exactly? No problem just search for what you do remember! The hardest part is remember you can search it! It's just a little right click away.

Google Labs - Trends

There is just so much information, good and bad, available on the Internet. Google is working feverishly to be THE source and means to deal with it. I've succumbed to the "Google sphere" ages ago with this blog and more recently Gmail, calendar and so on. I just hope that they don't turn into the maniacal corporate software giant bent on "evil" doing as portrayed in numerous movies! I guess they'd have to bump "Macrofirm" off first? Gosh, I've strayed off Revit a bit too much, back on task, Steve.

More and more I've been seeing references to one of their projects found in Google Labs. The lab project that I'm referring to is Google Trends, a tool to see what the world is searching for.

I recently read a thread at the Archicad community forums. I ended up there after reading something else about Revit and followed a few links and before I knew it I was there not sure exactly how I got there. Well suffice it to say that I don't remember now but I saw a graph of how searches for Revit and Archicad compared. The graph showed Archicad with many more searches, like this one that is limited to the last 12 months.Now that image is for "all regions" which is essentially all the markets/countries that are represented by searches for these topics according to Google. Notice the graph above for searches compared with the littler graph beneath representing news articles found per criteria, more for Revit.

Just for grins I got myopic and changed the search to just the USA. Here's the image of the result.A complete flip, like the mirror tool.

What wild conclusions can I draw from these two reports? Well clearly Revit is King in the USA! While Archicad enjoys the nicer throne in the overall world. Well, all I can actually conclude is precisely what the graphs show, more searches for Archicad occurred in all regions...etc.etc....

I'm not starting "Archicad is better than Revit" banter. Archicad users are nearly as rabid as Revit users and you will not convince them that they are using the wrong software unless there is an intervention by family and friends. Besides I think the subject of my blog(s) make it obvious which side of the fence I'm on.

What I am interested in is starting the debate that Revit is better than Archicad AND Chief Architect!!! See my proof below!Now for those of you whose family tells you that you lack a sense of humor...this is "tongue in cheek", humor, me being "funny", okay? I'm glad you like Archicad and Chief Architect. The more the merrier.

Happy searching for the proof that you are "right" about "something", "anything"...hmmm what if I compare Revit to Godiva chocolate? What about Revit to BMW or Revit to Trabant's? What about Ice Hockey and Field Hockey?

Thumbnail Explorer Released into the Wild

Raizlabs has released Thumbnail Explorer. This is an interesting product, a graphical search engine for your PC and network, with interesting possibilities for viewing/finding Revit content not to mention other file types.

From the website:

Thumbnail Explorer is the perfect tool for anyone who deals with graphics, office files or CAD and has more then a handful of files.

The software allows you to quickly and easily find any file across multiple folders without browsing or using Windows search. As you type a part of file name Thumbnail Explorer will show a list of thumbnails and will enable you to work with corresponding files without resorting to Windows Explorer.

Search and thumbnail extraction done as background process that guarantees interactive responsiveness even when searching through hundreds of thousands of files.

The software features tight integration with Windows Explorer. Double click or drag and drop search results into their native applications. Or right click to see the same context menu as in Windows Explorer.

Customize our tabbed interface to your work environment and files

Easy to use interface requires no training

Do you recognize the name Raiz? Leonid Raiz is one of the two founders of Revit, Irwin Jungreis being the other. Leonid's son Gregory founded Raizlabs 1997. Leonid has been working, in his spare time, on Thumbnail Explorer since retiring from Autodesk about two and half years after selling Revit to Autodesk. He recently released it to a small beta group and is now pleased to release it to the general public as a Raizlabs product.