Selecting a family in the project browser

[some buddy]

Hi,

I would like to create a dialog box based tool which would allow a user to
search with a keyword or pattern through all the available families in the
current project and list those who match the pattern. This part seems quite
easy to me, although I am no Revit API guru. But the next part seems quite
blurry to me and I'm not even sure that this is possible.

Once that the families that match the search pattern are listed in the
dialog box, the user is supposed to select one and only one from the list,
press OK (or double click on the item) and I want the program to "go" in the
project browser then find and highlight that family, eventually expanding
the node(s) if necessary.

Is this possible ? Could someone describe the process with some pseudocode
and eventually help with some basic code which I could expand by myself ? I
am a VB.NET guy, but I could translate some C# code eventually.

Thanks in advance

[GuyR]

Hi,

I would like to create a dialog box based tool which would allow a user to
search with a keyword or pattern through all the available families in the
current project and list those who match the pattern. This part seems quite
easy to me, although I am no Revit API guru. But the next part seems quite
blurry to me and I'm not even sure that this is possible.

Once that the families that match the search pattern are listed in the
dialog box, the user is supposed to select one and only one from the list,
press OK (or double click on the item) and I want the program to "go" in the
project browser then find and highlight that family, eventually expanding
the node(s) if necessary.

Is this possible ? Could someone describe the process with some pseudocode
and eventually help with some basic code which I could expand by myself ? I
am a VB.NET guy, but I could translate some C# code eventually.

Thanks in advance

To select in the project browser requires win32 methods. Not straightforward.

[anthonyf]

Hi,
The guys from RevitTV.com have an app coming soon that will enable the user to search by key word etc. see http://revitdrawingmanager.com/products/
and look for family manger about half way down the page.

Cheers

Anthony

[some buddy]

Hi,

Thanks for the answer. Could you suggest what API calls are necessary for this ?

TIA

[some buddy]

Thanks Anthony, I will look into it.

[some buddy]

Well,

These guys want money for their products, which is quite normal, but I am employed and payed as a CAD developper (initially AutoCAD, but right now I've been mandated to tap into the Revit API) so I don't think it's a good idea to ask my boss to buy something that I am supposed to be able to do by myself

[GuyR]

The point Anthony is making is via the (2011 especially ) API you can make a project browser type command which is significantly better than trying to hack the project browser in the Revit window.

HTH,

Guy

[some buddy]

The only point Antonyf is making, is to suggest me a product that some New Zeeland (from Wellington, what a coincidence!) software company (in occurence RevitTV) is going to release in the near future and all their products but one, are for sale.

I was hopping that you could mention those API calls that would help me to achieve what I want to do. I need to get hooked on the project browser because from that point on, I need the Revit original contextual menu.

I am not a very skilled programmer, I'm just trying to learn with the users.

Thanks for your time anyway.