Schedule New Row

Despite the recent improvements to schedules I find myself wishing for a subtle improvement to the Insert > Data Row feature. Paul Aubin commented on this at the Central States Revit Workshop during his Friday session for Interiors. I'm not alone, and the people in his class were on our side too.

The majority of the time we are likely to use it to insert a new Data Row. Since the Insert Above and Insert Below only is relevant or available when working on cells in the header they are far less likely to be used. I think Data Row ought to be a separate button. The other two options could appear to the side and as two buttons, one above the other, if we click on a cell in the header.

The current process adds clicks to what used to be a single click experience. Just say no to more clicks, it's a clicktastropy!

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!

Access to Feature Redundancy

When we examine the Revit interface we find that we can change the scale of a view at the bottom of the view on what is called the View Control Shortcut Bar. If you happen to keep your Properties Palette open you've probably noticed you can just change the scale value there too? It's the same situation for Detail Level and Model Graphics Style. In the image below the items highlighted in yellow (even some running off the image) are all represented on the View Control Shortcut Bar too.

This can seem a bit odd or redundant to fresh eyes. If you've been staring at Revit for a number of years you probably remember when it was necessary to open a dialog to see those settings. The View Control Shortcut Bar let us change things without opening a bloody dialog box again. Today it seems a bit unnecessary to have some of the view control shortcuts, unless you close the properties palette.

As I've written before, in Revit there are numerous doors you can open to gain access to features, front, back and side doors...even some secret doors. Maybe they are bit redundant but if your cursor is closer to the bottom of the screen you can take the "side door" to scale or detail level instead of hopping on your scooter and driving up to the top of the Properties Palette. With the serious resolutions available on some monitors these days it could be a long ride.

Managing Revisions

Every time I want to edit the Revisions for a project I activate the Manage ribbon tab. It's never there, no matter how many times I try. The Revisions Button is on the View tab and the Sheet Composition panel. It obviously made sense to the development and user interaction team but not me. I think the correct place to access the Sheet Issues/Revisions dialog is the Manage tab. Despite the inclusion of "Sheet Issues" in the dialog name, mentally I "manage" revisions with that dialog. I'd find it quicker if it were on the Manage ribbon instead. I'd be happy if it was either part of the Settings panel or the Manage Project panel.

Potayto...potahto?

Radio Buttons

Software developers have a lot of tools to manage how we interact with their handiwork. Radio Buttons are one such tool or concept.

They are NOT named because of their shape or appearance.

The name is derived from the way radio station selection worked on car radios, more consistent with older car radios perhaps than current technology (image found at Web Developer AtlanticBT).

For what it is worth, if you do an image search for "radio button" you won't see anything car or radio related, just a lot of examples of software using this radio button concept. If you search for "car radio button" you'll probably find the image I found above.

When you press a button for your favorite station whatever station was selected gives way to your new selection, only one station can play at a time. The same is true for these so called Radio Buttons in Revit. Whenever you encounter a button like these only one can be selected at a time.

How's that for a little pursuit of trivia?

Associate Family Parameter

I've written about Revit's sneaky buttons in the past (see the three links below). I find the button for the Associate Family Parameter feature particular frustrating.

First of all it's tiny and second it has no tooltip, both of which mean it is not particularly obvious. I find myself wishing for a different way to interact with this concept. I can't say that I have a better solution in mind. I just know that this one feels awkward.

Keep in mind that I'm coming from the point of view of someone who has spent about eighty hours clicking on those tiny buttons about a thousand times recently. There are many tasks in Revit that seem quite fine when you think of them as occasional activities. When you start to think of them as your 9-5 job, doing them over and over and over and over all day almost anything can start to wear on you.

Perhaps a clear cut button on the ribbon that says Associate Family Parameter and opens a dialog that lists the parameters that qualify. Even better perhaps a mapping methodology that allows us to define a series of native parameters and then map them to the nested family or the connector's parameters?

Here's links to three past Sneaky Button posts: POST 1, POST 2, POST 3

Interface Inequity - Modify Size

Revit MEP features Duct, Pipe, Conduit and Cable Tray all have a dialog that permits us to edit their information, chief among them is their sizes. Unfortunately the younger brothers, Conduit and Cable Trays, have a extra button, the Modify button that lets us easily change a setting for a size. The older brothers Duct and Pipe don't, pity! It's just like parents to let our younger siblings stay up later and easily modify their size!

In the must be nice category, the Cable Tray size portion of the dialog.

In the wishful thinking category, the Duct sizes.

Also in the wishful thinking category, the Pipe Sizes.

I wish it was as easy to add this sort of functionality into Revit as it was to copy and paste the modify button into these images!! I vote for component size equity!! Let us modify them, let us modify them!