THE JOURNAL FILE EXPLAINED!!

[ykang]

I remember in a class that instructor showed us what journal file does. What I know up to now is that the journal file records every single drafting. So, it could be used as a temp backup file to restore what you have lost. (or even work as a macro/script)

This morning for some reason, my file crashed and when I open the file again, it lost all the work that I did this morning. Luckily, I don't know when the journal file saves to my c: drive exactly but I found the file that was created 2 minutes ago. So, I dragged and dropped the file onto my revit screen and BAM, it recovered everything.

If you know any more than what I know, could you update the information for me? It would be great if someone posts how to decode the journal file.

I know it could be used as a script just like an Autocad.

You can macro a lot of repetitive work I believe!!!!

[cstanley]

i've found this to be hit or miss. for whatever reason, if the journal file encounters a dialog box that you entered data into, it stops right there. pretty useless. it does work well up to the point of the crash (sometimes...)
I normally demonstrate it during training, it's a good bit of fun. for rebuilding after a crash, however, i don't have much confidence in it anymore. It seems to have lost some reliability around v9.0...

[Simon.Whitbread]

if the journal file encounters a dialog box that you entered data into, it stops right there.

I've been using partial journal files to upgrade families. I took the BAT file with upgrdes families to the latest version and inserted parts of the journal to do specific tasks...

• turn off ref lines / planes
• add parameters
• transfer project standards

It works 80% of the time, but like you say sometimes the dialog box causes it to fail. Have asked factory if I'm doing anything wrong but had no reply.

See attached for a couple of examples, the 'addjxparam' script is the one I'm having issues with. The others work 100% of the time

Simon

[sleimgruber06]

I keep encountering a dialog box that says something to the effect of

"Entering Interactive Mode" which is not what I want... is there any explanation to this?? I mean I did some work in revit...saved it, then immediately following tryed the journal file and got this message... What Gives?!

[DaveP]

Like Colin said, ANYTHING that pops up a dialog box will cause the Journal script to fail.

I thought the Journal files would be a really cool way to do some timing testing. However, every project we work on uses Worksets, and everyone's favorite dialog box:

"This file has been copied from a Central file, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah"

crashes the script. I found I had to be so specific with ensuring I had already made a Local file that was EXACTLY the same for each test that the process was unusable.
Also, any DWGs or Revit Links that are not found will crash.
And, if anything is different, it'll crash. If you have anything in the Journal that edits an element & that element has been deleted. BOOM

[jeffh]

Journal files for the most part are intended to be used as a diagnostic tool for support and development. They can have other uses, as has been mentioned here, but I would not come to depend on journal files for these purposes.

[cstanley]

Journal files for the most part are intended to be used as a diagnostic tool for support and development. They can have other uses, as has been mentioned here, but I would not come to depend on journal files for these purposes.

that's too bad for us. they seem so cool!