Linking Excel Files

[gj]

Is there a way to link an excel spreadsheet to a Revit file ?

[beegee]

You cannot dynamically link an Excel file to Revit.

You can export to ODBC and you can export schedules directly to Excel.

You can import the "dumb text" from an Excel file.

[cphubb]

How do you import "Dumb Text from Excel?

Chris

[aggockel50321]

You can import an Excel sheet view into Revit & place it in a view or on a sheet as a grapic.

Print the Excel file out as a jpg. (if you don't have the printer driver to do this, look at a freeware one like pdf995).

Import the jpg & place it where you please. You can adjust it's size by grabbing the corner grips when highlighted, or by going to it's properties dialog.

[John K.]

I'm working on Python scripts to export and parse data for estimating. Unfortunately, I thought Python would look more like AutoLISP than it does so I have a bit of a learning curve before me. Anyone else out there good at this sort of thing? Care to collaborate?

jk

[gregcashen]

GuyR does some Python scripting, I believe.

[GuyR]

Great to see another python enthusiast !!;-)

I find it very easy to use and has extremely rich libraries. Probably have quite different directions we're going in but happy to help where I can.

Guy

[beegee]

Both Steve Stafford and yours truely are Python enthusiasts also, But Now Thats Something Completely Different. :wink:

[GuyR]

Beegee,

There is a link, from the python.org FAQ,


At the same time he began implementing Python, Guido van Rossum was also reading the published scripts from "Monty Python's Flying Circus" (a BBC comedy series from the seventies, in the unlikely case you didn't know). It occurred to him that he needed a name that was short, unique, and slightly mysterious, so he decided to call the language Python.

Guy

[hand471037]

I'm in the process of learning Python & Squeak (a modern version of Smalltalk). So while I'm no help now, I can be in the near future. :)

[PeterJ]

Jeffrey

What is the appeal of Smalltalk? I have a friend who writes banking and insurance systems in that language and it is pretty high end.

[GuyR]

For me the appeal of python is this:
[code:1:8969376aa2]
import dbi, odbc #import the database libraries

conn = odbc.odbc("v6test") #put name of registered datasource here
cursor = conn.cursor()
cursor.execute("select * from walls") #sql query
for field_description in cursor.description:
print field_description

for row in iter(cursor.fetchone, None): #print each row
print row
[/code:1:8969376aa2]

This runs the query on a database and prints the output to sys.out.

Guy

[hand471037]

Smalltalk is something that makes my head really hurt. :)

Like Python it runs via a virtual machine, so it's portable to anything and free of low-level errors and overflows. Like Python, it's open source (well, at least some versions are). Unlike Python, Smalltalk dates back a long time (to the 60's) and is a full developement environment, like Visual Studio or something. But 100 times more robust and clever. :)

It's major appeal is that everything is Object-Orentated, and everything is always running.

What I mean by this is, rather than the typical writing, compiling, running, and debuging process of typical software developement, it's much more 'Revit-Like'. You start by creating objects that communicate to each other; these are running in real-time the moment they are brought into existance. Smalltalk is unquie in that it lets you change the code WHILE THE PROGRAM IS RUNNING. As a matter of fact, this is the main way of developing the code. It's kinda like performing brain surgery on someone who's awake, and can tell you what's going on in there. At any time you can take any part of Smalltalk, down to the actual virtual machine it's running on, and open it up and start making changes. Smalltalk programs don't have a 'main loop' and don't really start and stop like procedural programs do. It was created in part by Alan Kay for the famed Dynabook project at Xerox Parc (the same research center that begat hyperlinks, Mice, GUI, and so much more...)

Again, it makes my head hurt.

Squeak is even worse, for it's a modern version of smalltalk written by some of it's orginal creators. Squeak is written in Squeak, so the vitual machine it's running on top of is written in the same language it's turning into machine code, and can be modifed in real-time, just like everything else in Squeak.

Head starting to hurt yet?

What's worse is that you don't really have files in squeak like you normally would with anything else, it's all one big ball of an image file that's code and data and UI and more all at the same time, all running real-time, and all instantly and infinately modifiable.

Smalltalk is what some people feel to be the only fun and 'beautiful' computer language, and lots of software developers will use it for it's efficency in production and it's ease of use. However, it's not very well suited to creating stand-alone applications, and it's not very well suited to low-level stuff like Video drivers and 3D game engines and such. For that, most use C or C++ (what Revit is written in)...

[PeterJ]

Funny, just as I was reading your post, Jeffrey, my friend SmallTalkBoy rang to wish me happy birthday. He thought your assesment of things wasn't far off the mark, though even more basic versions of Smalltalk work the way you describe in terms of code running on top of the same code.

As a long term project he is writing an office management system for me using Visual Works or Dolphin ST flavours, its basically a way of testing some code libraries he is working on but it is very interesting to see. The only drawback is that to close it, i.e make the runtimes without the code being exposed you need to pay a license of around £5,000 per seat, cheap for the banking community, but rather steep for a small practice.