Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Not on Sheets

Let's imagine you've been working on your project for awhile now and your project browser seems a bit out of control. It's pretty likely it doesn't take all that much imagination.

How can you tell which views are properly assigned to sheets and which aren't? I read a post today that offers one solution using a View List, a schedule of views.

You can also use the Project Browser sorting features. All the stock Revit templates include a browser configuration called "not on sheets". It's got a filter looking for views that don't have a sheet name parameter assigned.


If that's true the view remains in the views portion of the project browser. Those that are assigned to sheets are hidden from view. If you are thinking you could do the reverse to see those views ON sheets, really no need. You can just review those by expanding the Sheets portion of the project browser instead.

In fact this segregation lends itself to the notion of using working and production views that I wrote about the other day.

If my role is documentation I can focus on the sheets part of the browser. If I put on my modeler hat then I can move up to the views part of the browser instead. The "not on sheets" browser configuration will strip out all those documentation views for me.

There is also nothing wrong with some naming conventions to help declare their purpose. I like to see user names in working views so we can chase down the person who needed it to see if we can safely remove it. I've met some who manage such things with a scheduled Monday purge of so called working views. Ever run across a project with 200 sections views, all un-referenced? Nah, I didn't think so, your project teams are far too organized and careful.

Many people also use more formal naming for production/sheet views compared with working views. Something like PLAN - OVERALL - FLOOR SIX sure looks more formal than Level 06. If you use the Title on Sheet parameter then it gets a bit harder perhaps. For those just the presence of Uppercase versus lower case can be a subtle clue to their intended use for the team.

A hat tip to a little browser organization!

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