Change Thin Lines to be Default

[tim102289]

By default, Thin Lines is turned off upon entering Revit. I prefer to work with Thin Lines turned on as it is easier to see everything and snap to the correct places, etc. Is there a way to set Thin Lines to be on by default rather than off? I hate having to click the button or type TL every time I open Revit.

Thanks

[patricks]

Not possible. One the main premises of Revit is WYSIWYG. What you draw on the screen is what prints on the paper.

If you leave thin lines on all the time, how will you ever know what the drawing will actually look like when printed? I use thin lines sometimes, but I have to leave it off most of the time so that I know that what I'm drawing will read legibly when printed.

We had a user recently who always worked with Thin Lines turned on. He did a ton of detailing, and much of it was unreadable because lines were so close together that they all became one thick mush of lines. Unacceptable.

[tim102289]

I would be fine with turning Thin Lines off again before plotting. However when I'm constructing something and I want to be sure I'm precisely snapping to the endpoint of one line, and not something else that is nearby, I want to be using Thin Lines. Seems to me like the default setting should be a choice of the user, not unchangeable. If you prefer to have Thin Lines off and turn it on to detail, that should be your choice. If you prefer to have Thin Lines on and turn it off to prepare for plotting, that should also be your choice.

[eric.piotrowicz]

Really? Revit has a default OOTB keyboard shortcut to toggle Thin Lines on and off. Thats really too much of a bother to hit TL when zoomed in for the utmost precision? I understand your point about not wanting to accidently snap to the wrong point and I use Thin Lines a bunch as well but its not something I would say needs to be changed. If it was a user setting I could see my work load triple because of all the "why does Revit suck at making legible plots" questions just because users turned on Thin Lines and never switched back to see what they were creating.

[tim102289]

wow you guys are so extremely paranoid. i just think, that if i was allowed to decide, how i wanted the program, i was using, to perform, that would make sense. i like using thin lines. i want to construct an accurate model. i dont care how it looks when it plots, until i am about to plot it. currently thin lines is not set as default, which is fine. if i could change it so that it was set to default, it would make life a lot easier. and you wouldnt have tons of users complaining about illegible plots, because those users wouldnt know how to change thin lines to default to begin with.

for some reason, the people who respond to my posts here want to talk about what a disaster it would be if thin lines was able to be set to a default. all i wanted to know, was simply if there was a way to do so. if not, fine, that's all i wanted to know. i just think that a user should be able to set his/her own default settings for a program they are using. the program is supposed to be a tool for the user, and not something that limits the user to how the program is set up.

[cliff collins]

OK then.

"No".

cheers

[eric.piotrowicz]

There is a way to change the setting, TL and go model, its a split second change once a day. I don't see how this really making your life that difficult.

The only reason anybody is talking about it being a disaster is because we either have seen it be one or can see how it could create one. We just meant to give you a bit of advice that may help avoid a hard lesson learned down the road. As I said before I do understand what you mean about being sure Revit snaps to what you intend but I believe that is the very reason they included the thin lines command in the first place.

[tropitech]

imho, ideally you would be able to set anything to any default of your choosing. Technology should work for us.

Having said that i understand exactly where patricks and cliff collins are coming from, in their case i suspect it could be "technology working against us, due to people's lack of understanding".

joke's aside, you can plot a single keystroke to your keybord shortcuts, perhaps just assigning 't' will at least halve the effort involved.

[Craig_L]

we have templates set up to be done with colors assigned to line thicknesses, and I work with the background on inverted.

Looks the same as our 2D CAD standards, so thick lines really isn't needed...ever.

[randg684675]

I believe choice is good.
I can't believe anyone would put up a fight about the ability to change a default setting using the "what if" game as reasons.
It is just a question. Okay, so "no". Fair enough. It would be a whole easier to accept without knowing the reasons.

[Duncan Lithgow]

I can't believe anyone would put up a fight about the ability to change a default setting using the "what if" game as reasons.

I guess one reason is that part of the attraction of Revit is that you can't do anything. For example you (almost) can't fudge a dimension in Revit.

But I do agree that generally we are missing in Revit the ability to easily have our own personalized settings on startup. It's only recently that Revit remembers which worksets I had open last time and offers them when I go in to select worksets upon opening the file the next day. So there is something left to be desired.

@Braig_L: I absolutely don't understand why you would choose to do this - other than during a transition from AutoCAD.

[patricks]

ugh I've never been able to translate line colors to thickness in my head. Just doesn't work for me. I have to see the thickness of lines relative to each other exactly as they'll be printed.

Maybe that's why so many CAD drawings I see look like a muddy mess, because thicker lines are drawn too close together on the screen and end up touching each other when printed.

[king456597]

**Updated For 2015** Thin Lines setting is finally stored so it will be on by Default if you like to use it that way.

http://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-6084E92F-4C46-4047-B98C-2984E730A53D

"Thin lines: To improve consistency between Revit sessions, when you use the Thin Lines tool, the setting is stored in the Revit.ini file. When you launch Revit, the stored Thin Lines setting is used as the default. See Graphics Settings in Revit.ini."

[tedg]

**Updated For 2015** Thin Lines setting is finally stored so it will be on by Default if you like to use it that way.

http://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-6084E92F-4C46-4047-B98C-2984E730A53D

"Thin lines: To improve consistency between Revit sessions, when you use the Thin Lines tool, the setting is stored in the Revit.ini file. When you launch Revit, the stored Thin Lines setting is used as the default. See Graphics Settings in Revit.ini."

Hey congrats on your first post, and a nice follow up to this discussion too.

[wspier]

If you set your scale to 12"=1'-0", Revit defaults to thin line. Customize/set whatever other properties you want and then save that as your template file.