Shared Parameter File for different Revit versions

[ruth.clayton728068]

If you are going to be working in multiple version of Revit can you use the same SP file or should it be version specific?

If it's version specific how does this work for creating families for different version, if you start building it in the earliest version with the earlier version SP do you need to change the SPs when up saving to the later version?

[jsteinhauer]

Hello Ruth.

You do not need to have a version specific SP file. This is a .txt file that is generated by Revit, but doesn't contain any version information. Now the warning statement, "DO NOT EDIT IT OUTSIDE OF REVIT". That being said, the only thing I ever change in the file is the grouping of a parameter.

Cheers,
Jeff S.

[ruth.clayton728068]

Thanks Jeff for the quick reply, glad that's the answer as I couldn't get my head round how it would work otherwise.

Ruth

[DaveP]

You really only want to have only one Shared Parameter file EVER for the entire office.
We've had (with additions, of course) the same file for almost 10 years now.
Way back when, we thought we would make a copy just for one project, and that made a complete mess of things.
We ended up with a lot of parameters that had the same name, but different GUIDs. Makes it REALLY hard to figure out why one CostCenter is different from the other CostCenter.

Just like Shared Coordinates ("one file to rule them all"):
One Shared Parameter file to rule everything.

I promise you'll have problems the moment you create two files.

[CADastrophe]

There is a potential for conflicts between different versions of Revit referencing the same Shared Parameters file, but I do not know if this potential really exists for the Architectural discipline. There are some Parameter Types that are added to Revit in later versions (i.e. there are a few "Energy" Discipline parameters new to 2013), and if a Shared Parameter of one of these "new" parameter types is added to the Shared Parameter file, previous versions of Revit will choke and deny access and produce the following error:


Revit
The file 'X:\blahblah\blah\SharedParameters.txt' could not be read, or is not a valid shared parameter file.

[jsteinhauer]

Cory,

Is that if you try to add a new parameter type? Or, just accessing the SPF with those new types?

Thanks,
Jeff S.

[CADastrophe]

Is that if you try to add a new parameter type? Or, just accessing the SPF with those new types?

If you add a Shared Parameter to the SPF that is of a newer Parameter Type that doesn't exist in previous versions of Revit, then those previous versions can no longer access the SPF because they now think it's an invalid file.