"Smart" Text in notes

[J. Grouchy]

I've tried a few searches, but I'm not sure of the best wording to use for this question.

I guess it's basically, is there (or will there be) a way to assign a view to text, much like one would do for a callout or section mark that refers to an existing detail? For instance, if I want to refer to a particular view in a note or in a text block on a sheet, normally I would either just type in the detail/page reference or somehow insert an independent tag or custom section mark (text only, without the graphic) into a gap in the text. Both of these are problematic: the former because it often gets missed in the event the detail is moved or taken off the sheet, the latter because changes to the text block often throw it out of whack (misaligned with the text or completely in the wrong part of the sheet).

I'm basically assuming this feature doesn't exist. If it does not, has this feature been requested before? Has anyone found a better way than how I describe above?

[rtaube]

you're looking for the View Reference.

https://revitshmevit.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/view-references-in-text-notes/

[J. Grouchy]

you're looking for the View Reference.

https://revitshmevit.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/view-references-in-text-notes/

No...that's the second method I described in my post. It's not really adequate, in my opinion. One change to the note, moving the text block or adjusting the wording can affect its placement and alignment. I'm talking about directly inputting the view reference into the text itself and making it "live".

I guess it's clear there is no such feature. :(

[GatoVirtute]

I guess it's clear there is no such feature. :(

I think what you are looking for can be found with an add-in called Revolution workFlow: http://www.revolutiondesign.biz/workflow/WFfeatures.html

They are more well-known for their keynote manager, but the autoLink function enables you to get view reference perks within TEXT.

When you type text (yes, normal text) it is running in the background and can "sense" that you entered a detail number. So if that detail ever changes number or sheet, the text will update automatically. If you adjust your formatting of your text, it is not a huge pain like it is with a view reference. The only downside is that it costs money, and to make it work best you'd probably need everyone on production staff to have it installed, but it will help with quality assurance because we all know that views get shuffled and it is hard to track down and fix every dumb text reference.

They have a free trial, give it a try.
Hope that helps.

[david_peterson]

You can do it with Dynamo!
Marcello did a nice presentation on it at AU this year.

[GatoVirtute]

David, I watched the presentation that you're referring to and he seemed to gloss over it, but didn't actually perform the example. I downloaded the dataset also and can't seem to get it to function. It seems like it wants you to click the specific text instance for it to work, and I am not familiar enough with Dynamo to understand how that would work downstream. Do you have to keep dynamo open forever?

[david_peterson]

I believe the idea is that if you have a standard template and you where you want to reference a detail number vs saying "See Dowel Detail" or whatever. You can extract all the text within the model. Find the specific string "See Dowel Detail" and replace it with "1/S-301". I haven't really tried it a whole lot. I've played around with dynamo, but not an expert easier. All I know is if Marcello says you can, it's possible.
I think you also need the custom node from dynamo as well.