My Revit Ideas

*Updated 8th October, 2017
In my last post I spoke about the black hole that is becoming of the Revit Ideas Forum. Whilst I was a bit critical of things, I do think it is a great way for users to have a say and also to learn about what others think is important. 

I have posted a few ideas myself, some popular, others less so. I was starting to lose track of them, so I decided to keep a live list of my own ideas here in this post together with there status. I will update the list when/if I post new ideas. I encourage you to vote for ideas in the forum (as well as my own of course), if you think they are something you would like to see implemented in the future. You can even leave a comment if you having something to add or post your own idea! (Just do a good search before posting!)


In no particular order, my ideas so far...
Red = Under Review (Fingers crossed!)
Magenta = Implemented (Woo! See latest release)
Green = Accepted (It's coming...eventually, see the *latest Autodesk Roadmap)
Blue = Future Consideration (In other words, don't hold your breath)
Grey = Archived (Your idea was either a: unpopular and few people though it was a priority at this time or b: Lost in the black hole of 3000+ other ideas and hence, not voted for c: Autodesk have reviewed the idea and decided it is not worth marking as a future consideration)

• Measure in 3D Tool (Similar to SketchUp or FormIt)
• Schedule Material 'Mark' Parameter in Lieu of Material Name
• Doors to Report Walls They Are In
• Temporary Unisolate / Unhide
• 'Edit' Symbol for Material Editor (in lieu of hidden 3 dots)
• Selection Toggle for Design Options (To Replace 'Exclude Options' Tick Box)
• Sun Path Diagram Automatically Update When Changing Orientation
• Clean Up the Revit Ideas Forum
• Insight 360 Web Interface - Show Compass on the View Cube
• Insight 360 Web Interface - Heating & Cooling Loads Visualization Sticky
• Insight 360 Web Interface - GBS Interface Stop Scrolling Back Up
• Dimension Walls When 'Wrapping at ends' is Active (Limitation)
• *Filled Regions - Instance Parameters for Opaque/Transparent Setting
• *'Recent List' for Linestyles (Similar to walls)
• 'Search' Function for View Reference Tool
• Include Underlay Settings in 'Temporary View Properties' Mode
• *New Project Parameters Not Included in View Templates
• Families - Cuttable vs Non-Cuttable
• View Range for Ceilings
• Warnings Dialog Box Overhaul
• 'Create Similar' for Symbolic & Model Lines (in families)
• View Name Bold Under Sheet Names (when activated)
• Area Scheme displayed in Area Schedules
• 'Place an Image' Button (for previously loaded images)

Revit Ideas Forum - 12 Months Later...

In May of last year Autodesk announced at the then Revit Technology Conference (now known as BiLT) the new Revit Ideas Station. A short time later I mentioned and collated some of the top ideas at the time.

So, 12 months later, how is it all going? Well, ideas have been coming in thick and fast. In fact, there have been so many ideas, Autodesk seem to be struggling to maintain the forum. I started getting so annoyed by repetitive ideas myself, I even wrote an idea about the idea forum! You can see it here. Repetitive ideas due to the lack of searching before posting & the lack of filtering tools are some of my biggest gripes. Then there are the ideas that are actually just complaints. Many users shared my feelings, with the "idea" gathering over a 100 votes in less than 2 months plus a healthy discussion on what can be done to try and improve it. (I realise that some of these problems are out of Autodesks control such as users posting repeat ideas but providing a tool set to manage them IS in their control). 

One positive I have seen come out of the idea and subsequent discussion is a significant jump in the number of ideas being marked 'archived' and repeat ideas being combined. (Autodesk have told us the 'report' icon under the idea, can be used to help them with this and to provide a link to duplicate ideas when reporting). 

One of the other problems with the forum is ideas simply getting lost. I blame the extremely vague filter category of "Gathering Support" for this one. How do I know they are lost and not just a bad idea? Repeat ideas. You see what happens is, an idea pops up, it get's 20+ votes in a few weeks, yet search for the duplicate idea written months earlier and it only has half a dozen votes. The problem is now, they have been relegated to somewhere between page 5 and page 144. What's that saying about the second page of a google search result??

At the time of writing, there were 162 pages or almost 3000+ ideas. That's about 250+ ideas per month!! How are you supposed to see this many ideas, let alone vote for them without good filtering tools? Well you can't and considering this isn't Autodesk's first ideas forum for one of their software applications, I am surprised they didn't come up with something better. Although, admittedly, the number of ideas in the other forums is, in most cases, less than 500. So maybe the popularity of the station was underestimated?

My latest thoughts on improving the idea station is to have the ability to filter or categorise ideas by tool, instead of the vague tagging categories of 'User Interface' or 'Multi-discipline'. 
For example, let's say you had an idea about design options. You would go to the forum and select or search from a list of tools in Revit. You would find and see only the ideas relating to 'Design Options'. Furthermore, they could be filtered by discipline, vote count, status, date, author, etc. If you can't find what you are looking for, write an idea and categorise it accordingly. This may even help Autodesk see what the discussion is around a particular tool set. 

"There are a lot of tools in Revit" I hear you say? Yes there are, but here is some food for thought... In another 12 months, assuming some slow down of ideas pouring in, there will be well over 5000+ ideas. Good luck sifting through all of them...

Lots of Revit Schedules - Managing Your Model Data

Schedules aren’t just there for documentation purposes. They can be a great tool in managing your model data and components.

Take a basic room schedule for example; even though a room schedule may not form part of your typical documentation set, they are the best way to quickly identify rooms ‘not enclosed’ or ‘not placed’. When you delete a room from the project, doing so from the model environment prompts the following warning…

‘A room was deleted from all model views but still remains in this project. The room can be removed from any schedule or placed back in the model using the Room command’.

Use the delete row button in the schedule ribbon to completely remove the room from the project.

Another example of a must have schedule in your project is a ‘View List’ schedule. Large projects can have hundreds if not thousands of views to manage. Ensuring all the right data is in place through the properties panel of each view is a tedious way to manage so many views. A view list schedule will give you a global look at the parameters related to all your views in the project. View templates can expedite much of this data entry. 

When it comes to sorting your schedules, there isn't much choice. Naming convention is the only option really. You can't custom sort schedules in the project browser the same way you can for views. We all wish we could! It has made its way to the Autodesk Idea forum HERE, but in the meantime I typically prefix schedules created solely for data management with '_Manage'. This keeps them together and clearly identifies there purpose to other users.

I make 'working views' of most schedules. This allows me to place instruction for users to help with data entry and I format a number of columns to make it clear where data is needed. All working schedule headings are shaded yellow for easy identification whilst in the schedule.

Another advantage of separate working schedules is the issue with text wrapping. Only when a schedule is placed on a sheet does text wrapping occur. The schedule itself, does not text wrap. A few releases back, Autodesk made a change that meant the column width adjusted in the schedule, matched the column width on the sheet. The downside to this is narrow columns adjusted on the sheet, makes the column difficult to read in the schedule view, because there is no text wrapping. Staff would adjust columns to work in the view ruining the formatting of the schedule on sheets.

Hopefully one day schedules will be viewed as 'what you see is what you get'. 

Don't limit your use of schedules to just what you need for project output, use them for model management as well, it will save you a whole heap of time. Combine this with Dynamo or addins such as Ideate BIM Link and you have some very powerful tools for controlling data.  

Revit User Interface: The Filters Dialog Box

I am not sure I could model without filters. How do Revit LT users work without them? (Revit LT doesn't have filters). As good as filters are, there is certainly room for improvement. For example, do we really need the 'Add Filters' dialog box you see when you access filters through the visibility graphics? To add a newly created filter to the visibility graphics, you click 'add', then you have to click Edit/New to actually create the new filter. So you create your filter, go back to the 'Add Filter' dialog box, find the new filter in the list and click 'add'. It's just not as simple as it could be. The separate Edit/New button in the visibility graphics dialog box is even more useless.

So, it got me thinking, why don't I come up with my own?? Did you notice anything different about the filters dialog box in the image above? 

My Proposed New Filters Dialog Box Explained

A good interface is an intuitive interface. Relevant tool, all at your finger tips.

Revit suffers from too many hidden settings, behind layers & layers of dialog boxes. (Yes, stairs & railings, I am thinking of you!)

I kept this in mind when creating this new filters dialog box interface. The intention was not to redesign the style of the interface, but to simply add more functionality & tools I felt are relevant when using filters.

My Proposed Filters Dialog Box

1. Add Filter: As mentioned earlier, I have proposed to delete the little 'Add Filters' dialog box we get when working through the visibility graphics. This new icon adds the selected filter/s to the visibility graphics. It is only active when you access the filters via the visibility graphics.

2. Save Graphic Overrides: We have all wished for it. There are add-ins to help us with it. The ability to save the graphic overrides with the filter so when we apply it to a view, we don't have to manually match overrides with previously setup filters.
Click this new icon to open the 'Global Filter Graphics' [3]. Assign your overrides and they will save to the filter. When you add the filter to the visibility graphics, if there are overrides applied they will automatically populate. To easily identify which filters have global graphics saved to them I have borrowed something from the family environment when using instance parameters. When we assign an instance parameter in a family, we see the word '(default)' in the type settings, so we can easily identify instance parameters whilst building a family. In this case, we get the word '(graphics)'. 

3. Global Filter Graphics: You will recognise these tools from 'View-specific element graphics', We want consistency with familiar interfaces. This panel is a fly out panel, similar in operation to the view range or editing wall assembly dialog boxes. This fly out opens (if closed) when you press [2] Save Graphic Overides.

4. Reset: This is not a new button, but Reset will not only reset the overrides, but prompt you with a warning asking if you wish to 'reset' the overrides globally. If you click No, the overrides already applied in other views will remain, but no longer be controlled globally throughout the model.

5. Show / Hide Graphics Panel: A simple button to open or close the Global Filter Graphics.

6. Add Filter to selected View Templates: Sometimes we have to create a new filter that we would like to apply to multiple view templates. After creating the filter, this icon opens the View Templates dialog box, allowing you to select one or multiple view templates to apply the new filter to. 

7. Find views with the selected filter:  Click this icon to get a simple panel listing all the views your filter belongs too. The panel looks exactly the same as the 'Go To View' panel we get when using the 'Find Referring Views' tool. The same function is also available, select a view and click 'Open View'. 

8. Show All Categories. In my opinion, when you open the filters dialog and select a filter, you want to see everything that makes up that filter. At the moment Revit requires you to select 'Hide un-checked categories' if you want to see which categories the filter applies too. To me, this is backwards, I want to see the categories that apply to the filter first. If I want to choose additional ones I select 'Show all categories'. When creating a new filter, Show all categories is automatically ticked.

9. Help: You may have noticed I have removed the text at the top of this section of the palette. I think the first time I read that sentence of text was when I wrote this blog! So whilst I think it is important, it is only relevant to beginners, once you know it, you never read it again. I have therefore removed it and in its place added what I think should be in many areas of Revit, a help icon for users. It will provide a short-cut to the knowledge network page on creating filters. 

10. Width of the categories window: This has been increased to remove the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom. I don't like horizontal scroll bars in dialog boxes. Just make it wider so we can see everything. Thank you. 

11. Invert button. Consistency, it's one thing that lacks a little in Revit in my opinion. For example, visibility graphics and object styles have 'Check All' & 'Check None' buttons, next to these is an 'Invert' button, so why not in filters? Added.  

12. Discipline Filter Checkboxes: We want quick and easy tools that aren't hidden. A drop down menu hides items. In my dialog, I want to easily see and filter my categories list. So I have brought them to the front so we can quickly use them. 

13. Select all categories with parameter: Sometimes we want to create a filter that applies to all categories. The problem is you can't just select all categories in the list because then the parameter you want, won't display due to some categories not containing that parameter. The work around has been to select one category, then select the parameter you want, then check remaining categories. Every time you check a category without the parameter, you get this warning:

This subtly indicates the category doesn't hold the selected parameter, so you skip it.
I want to make this process more intuitive. So I have created a check box for 'Select all categories with parameter'. This allows you to select a parameter you wish to filter by, then if you tick 'Select all categories with parameter' it will automatically search the categories in the list and select them for you if the parameter is available. Simple & fast.

14. And / Or function: This needs little explanation, we all know what it does and we all want it. It is probably the longest unanswered wish list item of all time. Finally with the Revit Ideas forum Autodesk have listened and we will hopefully get an 'Or' function in the near future. 

So that's it, that is my proposed filters dialog box. What do you think? Did I miss something you would like to add? Feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments! 

Warning! Revit Wish Ahead!

The warnings dialog in Revit could do with an overhaul in my opinion. The functionality is seriously lacking and everyone has the same gripe about the 'show' button taking you to useless views where the object isn't even visible. 

The need to close the dialog to attend to each warning has always bothered me. From a model management perspective, it would work better as a palette, in my opinion. There are many other things I would like to see improved for the warnings dialog so I have collated a number of my wish list items I have on the subject as well as other useful ideas I have read over the years on forums & blogs. In no particular order they are... 

1. We should be able to 'Ignore' or 'accept' warnings we no longer want to see. This way, we get a true value of warnings to be concerned about in the project. We can't always please Revit and all its rules. Trying to create zero warning files is not a recommended endeavour. So this feature is a must
2. When clicking "show" we should be able to nominate view types or specific views to search through. The number of times we are taken to a roof plan, site plan or worse elevation trying to see an internal door on ground floor is almost a running joke 
3. It would be useful to be able to assign priority to "types" or "categories" of warnings - perhaps through a warnings 'options' dialog. Eg: Calculation warnings or duplicate warnings being given top priority etc
4. With priority comes sorting. Being able to sort warnings by date to get the most recent warnings, or by user would be helpful. Sort by category is another example, so rather than see all warnings under 'duplicated type marks' I can sort by category and see all warnings effecting doors for instance
5. We need an "isolate" button that isolates the offending objects in view. There are apps for this already that also colour code objects. It's an invaluable tool and would be great if it was tied into the rest of this list
6. The ability to leave the warnings dialog open while resolving problems. We shouldn't have to close this dialog while working on warnings. Some warnings can be resolved by simply adjusting a parameter such as a base offset, type mark or similar. This could be achieved if the dialog could be kept open while being able to work in the model environment making fixes on the fly. As previously mentioned this would be solved if the warnings dialog was a palette 
7. The ability to expand the size of the warnings dialog box. This has been applied to a number of dialog boxes over the last few releases, not yet the warnings dialog. Solved if it went to a palette design
8. We often amend objects in Revit that affect dimensions. We are sometimes presented with a warning to proceed with the change via a warning to delete dimensions. Sometimes we can click 'Show'. More often than not, we can't or worse, Revit deletes the dimension first, so then when you click 'Show' it says 'No good view could be found'. If we don't click delete, we can't move forward. (In other words, you don't have a choice). I would like an option to see WHICH dimensions are being deleted before I am forced to remove them. This is currently flawed functionality for a software that is supposed to AID in coordination
   
   
   

   
9. Warnings tagged with the user name that originally generated them. This would help tremendously with user training, responsibility and model management. This is not intended as a blame game tool, but understanding where errors occur can greatly aid in improving processes 
10. We often want to copy ID's from warnings to select those objects using ID selection. At the moment, you have to remember the number or generate a report to copy and paste. A 'Copy ID's of Checked Items' button would be excellent for this purpose. This wish may prove void if item 5 were addressed or could be part of the function 
11. Help menu provides advice to fix certain types of warnings. This should be accessible in the warnings Dialog. "See more Help on this warning" for example. It would help new users resolve issues they are unfamiliar with or provide steps to identify possible causes or methods to resolve the warning
12. Pop up warnings should need acknowledgement by clicking 'OK' to stop them disappearing. Users can plow ahead and ignore simple stuff, slowly racking up silly warning messages. This is particularly evident when training my students or clients, some warnings go by so quickly users don't even see them. This could act like balloon notifications, giving you the option to adjust settings for warning dialog duration, transparency & approval etc.
13. An option to 'expand' or 'collapse' all warnings! This should be a standard function whenever these types of + sign trees are used in my opinion. It's the 21st century, this should be standard stuff written into software. The fact we have to request it is ridiculous. (While your at it, how about getting this into the project browser too)
    
    
14. Currently when selecting elements with warnings, the 'Show related Warnings' in the contextual ribbon displays. The interface could be improved by displaying a warning icon, on or above the object instead. Clicking the symbol would open the relevant warning as it currently does via the contextual ribbon. An alternative would be to introduce another selection colour for an object that has a warning associated with it
15. Warnings relating to objects in closed worksets should be indicated to reduce confusion. Perhaps in brackets next to the warning it can say 'Workset is currently closed'
    
    So, is there anything I missed? Post in the comments if there is function you would like to see from the warnings tools. 

Revit Ideas Forum

If you haven't already heard, back in May this year, at the Revit Technology Conference, Autodesk made an announcement regarding the new 'Revit Ideas Forum'. Essentially an official Autodesk space for everyone to post their product feature wishes! 

As expected, there are plenty of wishes being posted. As ideas gather support, Autodesk have recently marked a number of ideas as "Under Review", due to their popularity. As of today, the ideas marked are:

• **"OR" function in filter rules
• PDF linking support
• **Dual monitor support
• **Double patterns
• Separate family browser
• Sloped walls functionality
• Ability to sort schedules in project browser
• Topography improvements
• Ability to create blank tables
• Auto spell check
• Improved stair functionality and control
• Shared parameters in key schedules
• Non-rectangular scope boxes
• Improved view placement on sheets
• Spell check in schedules
• Autodesk Revit Viewer improvements
• **Multiple selections in dialog boxes (such as filters)
• Worksets in templates

Not a bad list so far. I have posted a couple of my own as well, (3D measuring, wall type reporting in doors & improved warnings dialog) so head over and vote or make a wish! 

In the forum, Autodesk have provided some options to filter the ideas, to make it easy to see all those under review. I noticed "Implemented" is one of those options. Obviously, as this is all fairly new, there aren't any currently marked as implemented, but no doubt Autodesk will be looking to change that fairly soon! I am quietly confident we can expect to see some of the above possibly as soon as 2018 release. Fingers crossed!! 

Update 17/08/2016
**As of this week, Autodesk have started marking ideas as 'Accepted' and added the idea to their 'road map'. Woo!! I have therefore updated the list above with asterisks for items marked as 'Accepted' at the time of writing.