Double Clicking Tags

In Revit 2013 we found a new feature to be quite annoying, double clicking on a room tag would put us in the family editor. That is particularly bewildering to new users. Usually we were more interested in typing in a room name or number. With 2014 we received new options to define how Revit should respond to double clicking on a family.

At the Central States Revit Workshop this morning, Brian Cowles with IMAGINIT mentioned a subtle change that is easily missed. If you leave the setting "Edit Family" as your preference it is almost the same as 2013 except that where you put your cursor is important before double clicking. If you double click on an editable label in the tag it will place you in edit mode for the parameter. If the Move symbol icon is displayed when you double click you'll edit the family. This means you can take advantage of double clicking AND avoid the downside.

Love subtle stuff!

New Selection Features and Keyboard Shortcuts

The new selection options that I mentioned earlier are accessible via keyboard shortcuts too by the way. This question was asked at a recent user group meeting but wasn't answered explicitly other than to say, "I think so". Well they can!

New Selection Quirks

Dan Stine passed along a couple thoughts after working with Revit 2014 in earnest. The new selection options Select by Face and Drag Elements on Selection can have some undersireable effects on your modelling experience. He wrote to describe these two situations:

Select by Face combined with Drag Elements on Selection is a “deadly” combination because you can much more easily start moving floors and ceilings.

When Select by Face is turned on you cannot select Rooms or Spaces. Ouch or maybe that's good, depending on what you are up to? I'll have to check to see if we can still TAB over the room tag to select the room.

Sometimes when we get things we ask for we also get some unintended consequences along with them.

Remember the Status Bar and Think Edges

Two little practical tips or reminders for Friday morning.

Tip One - Revit doesn't see things until you place your cursor near the edge of an element. There are some exceptions but for most elements you've got to move the cursor near an edge. Not sure if Revit sees it? Is it highlighted? No, then Revit doesn't see it. No point clicking to select something if Revit doesn't acknowledge it. The highlighting is visual confirmation that Revit thinks "this" is what you want to select.

If it isn't the correct one, remember the TAB key cycles through alternate elements that Revit could see in the same spot. I imagine sonar radiating from the tip of the cursor. If an element is close enough to bounce a signal back to the cursor you can "sink the battleship". No "Disco Tabbing", that happens when you hold the tab key down instead of just pressing once or twice as needed. I say disco because elements flash at you when you hold the button down. Thanks to Cyril Verley for that, I heard it from him first.

Okay that was three tips already; Edges, Highlighting and the TAB key.

Tip Two - When you are busy remembering edges don't forget to remember the Status Bar. It tells you what Revit sees or wants from you. When you place your cursor near an element you get the highlighting, you should see a tool tip AND the Status Bar offers you some info too. It's like a read-only command line, sssh.

Selecting Multiple Saved Selection Sets

Sibilance! I used to work for Syracuse Scenery & Stage Lighting, Co. in Syracuse, NY. It was fun when I had to introduce myself formally starting with, "Hi, I'm Steve Stafford with...". The title of this post reminded me of that, sorry! I was going to lead into it with Dept. of Subtle but that was too many "sssss"... it is really subtle though. Okay I'll get to it then.

Revit 2013 added Saved Selection Sets, a feature that was part of an extension for Revit Structure originally.

The concept is simple, select elements and click a button to save (top button in the image above) them as a set that can be called on later, to do something with or to them again. If that seems likely then it will come in handy. The Save button wakes up when there is something selected. The Load button wakes up after something has been saved as a selection set.

The subtle part of this is that when there are several selection sets to choose from, what if we want to do something to more than one at a time? The dialog doesn't let us select multiple saved sets. Guess we're sunk.

[Edited 5/18/2012 - Gabe pointed out in a comment that CTRL isn't necessary, just running the tool again by clicking Load will allow us to add another selection set, cool! Thanks Gabe! - Disregard the following section]

It doesn't look like it will work but using the CTRL key does work, just not inside the dialog. The trick to this is selecting one and clicking OK to leave the dialog. Then press CTRL and click the Load button again (middle button in the first image), select another saved set, click OK.

Now we've got two saved selection sets selected again. It's easy when you know how!

Ready Made Selection Sets for Navisworks

Want to save time in Navisworks when it comes to selection sets? Try exporting select views of the model to establish ready made "selection sets". We've already got natural organization with categories, worksets and filters doing some heavy lifting in our project. If we export several NWC files with just things like all the plumbing, HVAC, furniture, fin tube radiation, medical equipment, and so on, we'll have separate ready-made selection sets. Further finer grain selections can then be made by focusing on the separate files within Navisworks, if it's even necessary.

Sure that's what Navisworks is good at, selecting and searching for criteria but things are already pretty organized in a Revit model. Seems a waste of time to export a big pile only to want to break it down into smaller piles inside Navisworks? Want to run slash detection on pipes and ducts, just pick the two separate files as soon as they are loaded. If information doesn't get sent to us like this, we can just ask. If it still doesn't then we've still got Navisworks search ans selection sets in our back pocket.

Tab Key and Selection

Read a post by Luke at What Revit Wants regarding a tip he heard in Chad Smith's AU Virtual session, 45 Autodesk Revit Tips in 45 Minutes. It reminded me that I created a video of it to demonstrate it a couple years ago. Here's what I wrote back in October 2009 regarding this tip.

This is subtle feature of using the TAB key that many users are not aware of. First of all, it is easier to see than to describe so you might as well watch the VIDEO.

Two items:

• Select Entire Chain of Walls or Lines
  
• Select Partial Chain of Walls or Lines

First item - Hover cursor over a wall or line > Press TAB key once (Walls or lines highlight) > Left Click to select.

Second item - Select a wall or line > Hover cursor over a different wall or line somewhere along the path > Press TAB once (Walls or lines highlight) > Left Click to select. The subtle difference is that which direction the selected chain travels depends on which end of the element you hover your cursor over. Watch and then try it!

NO DISCO tabbing, as my friend Cyril says. Just press the TAB key once. You get the disco tabbing when you press and hold the TAB key down. We call it Disco because the highlighted lines will flash at you.

Last comment, make sure you hover and then hold your mouse steady. If you move the mouse away after highlighting the chain the TAB feature fails. You have to make sure everything is highlighted still before using the Left mouse button to select them. It is a process unlike any other software you are familiar with most likely. Practice a couple times if you aren't already very comfortable with it.

Here's the video...