My 5 Month Wish List

[zenomail105021]

I started with Revit, I guess, about 5 months ago and have spent quite a bit of time with it. Take the following in light of my relative experience with the program. I removed, recently, completely, Architectural Desktop from my computer ....... no regrets. I am attached to Revit now, the result of a genuine admiration for the program and much time invested so I have a vested interest in it’s ultimate perfection, forget the money. Therefore, to this end, I feel the obligation to trot out my wishes to date (and, of course, they are just my wishes, not everyone’s):

1. The silly crayon cursor icon thingy must go. It is atavistic, faux, contradictory, .......................... It absolutely does not feel right. It just does not ascetically fit with the fine design and powerful capabilities of Revit. It is a bad first and lasting impression i.e. you have this thoughtfully created and marvelous powerhouse of a design program and the tool you are given to drive it is a ............... child’s crayon? What is this? The idea, raison d’etre perhaps, of the program is that you don’t have to use a pencil (or crayon) to draw so why are we commanded to use one, even symbolically. Besides, I am not left handed and don’t hold a crayon or HB pencil that way. It feels uncomfortable. Small (or adjustable) crosshairs, a burning point, a slender thingy that does not try to look like something else (but horizontally and vertically - not lopsided like a wall getting ready to fall down) uniquely Revit, a small diaphanous circle with a dot in the center, Donald Duck, something, anything, but a clunky and exclusively left handed crayon. My goodness! There is something elegant out there which might actually complement this fine program. Drawing (or measuring, or anything) with that silly crayon is like playing a very fine violin with a student bow (which I have done), or, I suppose, driving a Ferrari with a broom handle (which I have not), or .................

2. A dedicated folder or folders for automatic backup of all files - project, family, template, whatever. For the most part Designers/Architects naturally tend to be pretty organized folks and this is pursued in their computer work. Having backup files relentlessly popping up then gratuitously (in multiples no less) hanging around in working folders is sloppy and the chore of house cleaning should not even be a consideration. Or, perhaps, the mature option of not having to create backup files in the first place would fill the bill. Most of us do have our own backup protocol and really would prefer not to have the hand holding most particularly in view of the aforesaid downside.

3. Structural members attaching and acting like they look and act in the real world. This really threw me (and others it seems from reading the AUGI threads) when I first started out with Revit. Still does and is still discouraging.

4. A FIND (CTRL F maybe) option in the browser. Why not?

5. The option of hiding/isolating objects and categories so that they are also hidden/isolated when printed. This is a no-brainer on a fundamental level i.e. control of Construction Documentation which is still the sine qua non for the majority of us.

6. Most definitely an Area command. I know (with some additional insights from a recent AUGI thread) that you can find areas in a host of other ways but frankly they sometimes are just not convenient or practical. Like the Measure command with chain (thank goodness!), an Area command just comes in handy and particularly so when doing takeoffs and costing. Length-Area ..... pretty fundamental stuff. Just Saturday morning I had to pay a contractor for just part of some decks built. An Area command would have been real convenient and quick. Not the end of the world but I had to use the Measure tool and then drag out my calculator again. Happens a lot where I sit. It is the thing I miss most about ADT (which did not evolve in a vacuum). It could be added to the Measure tool option bar. Plenty of space for it.

7. Graphical adjustment of view range? I’m still pretty dumb on this view range thing. Somehow I think a graphical approach with a few bells and whistles might just simplify things.

8. Window head heights rather than sill heights as the default. In 30 years of (primarily, though not exclusively, residential so my scope is somewhat limited) building I don’t think I have ever used sill heights as a reference. Perhaps I might some day but it just has not happened yet.


9. And, maybe, just maybe, in the foreseeable future: Customizable Macro Buttons. Lots of fun.


In my opinion Revit has evolved to the point where the above should just be part of the program. Like in 9 or sooner. They address some functionally basic issues and are practical and commonsensical by most standards, I think. They just make sense, to me. Most are recurring requests by Revit users at least in the AUGI forums, so evidently I am not alone in these wishes.


Happy days!


Bill Maddox

[BWG]

I second these motions.

But, don't we have an area command. You can sketch an area boundary around things. I haven't used it much yet, but I did here that you cannot overlap the boundaries.. That might be a problem.

[Steve_Stafford]

It's a pencil...;)

[vanessa]

1. The silly crayon cursor icon thingy must go. .... Besides, I am not left handed and don’t hold a crayon or HB pencil that way.

On an off-Note on this one, unless your curser is different than ours, it is NOT a left handed pencil. I AM left handed, and I have never held a pencil that way.

In addition, I never really noticed what the curser looked like, until it was pointed out.


2. Backup folders - This would be nice, I wish for it every week when it is time to clean out the folders. As for the option to turn off backups and manually make them, I think that is a bad idea, as I know that some people in probably every office, won't do thier backups, causing issues.


4. A FIND (CTRL F maybe) option in the browser. Why not?"
My question is why? Why not is not a very good reason for something. I guess if it was better explained what you are looking for, this might make sense.


5. "The option of hiding/isolating objects and categories so that they are also hidden/isolated when printed. . I think that would be a good idea. Perhaps a check mark on the print screen indicating a desire to not print hidden objects.


8. Window head heights rather than sill heights as the default. In 30 years of (primarily, though not exclusively, residential so my scope is somewhat limited) building I don’t think I have ever used sill heights as a reference. Perhaps I might some day but it just has not happened yet.

This is a user defined parameter in families, it is not that difficult to change even in existing families. As for never using sill heights, we use them in almost every building we do, and I have rarely used a head height.



These are just my thoughts.

[janunson]

Number 2 would be nice... I'm still training my office and keep having to explain all the backups to people and why they shouldn't open them... just a (backup) folder or a setting in options to append a folder name to the path would be great.

[jo.moens]

Hello,

I agree.
Leveling up the structural members would be fine( i hope RS will not downgrade RB for the structural part).

Stabi.

[BWG]

This is a user defined parameter in families, it is not that difficult to change even in existing families. As for never using sill heights, we use them in almost every building we do, and I have rarely used a head height.


This is perhaps the difference between commercial and residential, but in my experience with residential, the head height is the most commonly used locator for window vertical placement than any other form. At least in our area. I have never had any one ask about a sill height unless it was a commercial job like a school where code requirements are more strict and usually reference the sill heights. We will be having a set of tags in the families for head height/sill height or whatever we need so we can use windows across different areas of our practice. This will also be the parameters.

[rod.74246]

Okay a number of these are good ideas. In particular the back up idea. If i could control that i would cut down the size of my nightly back up files by 80% by being able to store these somewhere else and not having to transmit these at night. At the moment there is no way i can exclude the revit back up files from the nightly server backup. Hell even just changing the file extenstion to something else for the backups would do thet rick for me.

As far as the cursor. I hate you :) I never really noticed this until you pointed it out but now it is bugging me like one of those innane songs that get stuck in your head. Now i can't help but look at it every time i do something. Gahh :)

[roy.70844]

I agree with almost everything here except No1. The appearance of the cursor has to be secondary to the function (Who said form follows function?) Just look at Autocad for example Some people have the small 5% cursor others hate it and insist on full screen cursor, just like the good ol' days. And don't even get me started on Windows, I mean marching dinosaurs for goodness's sake.
However on the functional point, as a Revit trainer upgrading many Autocad users, I see the same problem over and over.
Get someone to draw a rectangle in Revit (perhaps a wall by picking two intersections of grid lines) watch how an Autocad user instinctively places the centre of the rectangle graphic at the intersection and not the tip of the pencil, just like some kind of Autocad Pickbox. Get rid of the graphic next to the cursor I say.

Roy

[neb1998]

Did Anyone mention the AREA Tool yet???? :)

[aaronrumple]

And don't even get me started on Windows, I mean marching dinosaurs for goodness's sake.
Roy
...oooo Marching dinosaurs. Where's the poll?

[zenomail105021]

Ignorance is not bliss. Just figured it out and made a generic (not structural) family of dimensional lumber. Works fine for beams and what have you without the alignment problems. Isn't Revit great!

Bill Maddox

[roy.70844]

Ignorance is not bliss. Just figured it out and made a generic (not structural) family of dimensional lumber. Works fine for beams and what have you without the alignment problems. Isn't Revit great!

Bill Maddox


Top Tip..... Should be added to tips & tricks asap (if it's not there already, havn't checked)

[mmodernc]

I really miss the big crosshairs that can be tilted to any workgrid and a 3D crosshair would even be better for the 3D views-nice list of musthaves but just the tip of the crayon.

[cphubb]

I like the backup issue. We try to default the backup count to one but inevitably someone does not change the default and we get 10. Looking at this a few years ago brought be back to my autocad days where we had .bak files all over the place. Then tape was really expensive and we needed a way to delete those files prior to the tape running. So here is the method we devised and I modified to fit Revit.

Batch delete file (scary eh)

[path to folders]
' delete all Autocad backup files
del /s /f *.bak
'delete all Revit family backups
del /s /f *.0.rfa
'delete all Revit project backups
del /s /f *.0.rvt


Place this on the server C drive and create a scheduled task to run the batch prior to the backup tape running. We run it at 10pm every night. No backup files left in the morning.

A side note, when using worksets we always use the local c drive as the workset location. We also specify 10 backups for all workset projects. This allows us to backup incrementally and prevent meltdowns. You must place these files on the local drives because the are a bazillion of them.

[Scott D Davis]

For Revit files it's easier to say:

DEL *.????.r* /S

This takes care of any RFA or RVT with the "0001" (or any sequential) in the file name. Copy and paste the text above into notepad, and save as "Delete revit backups.BAT"

Drop the BAT file into any Revit folder, and double click to run. Searches all root and sub folders.

[cphubb]

We have been modifying that batch file for years. Just adding lines as we go.

Still easier to use the Scheduled task feature on the server. I even added a log function so we can see what files were deleted. In case we need to get them back for some strange reason. It helps separating the deletes because there is less to look for. Remember we wrote this for Autocad .bak files and in one night we may delete 2-3 hundred.

[Adam Mac]

Well put - although i think you should seek some counselling over the cursor issue.... (lol)

[snurresprett9]

I agree with all of that, especially the area thing.

[janunson]

Batch delete file (scary eh)

[path to folders]
' delete all Autocad backup files
del /s /f *.bak
'delete all Revit family backups
del /s /f *.0.rfa
'delete all Revit project backups
del /s /f *.0.rvt



Yes it is. We use a VB extension in autoCAD that automatically moves all bakup files to the users's C:\_backup\ folder. That way they have a local copy in case of disaster, and the network and backups stay clean. I'd like to see an option to do this w/ revit.. Maybe the new API will offer an option? just need to be able to launch some VB code on a save event.

[janunson]

I really miss the big crosshairs that can be tilted to any workgrid and a 3D crosshair would even be better for the 3D views-nice list of musthaves but just the tip of the crayon.


OK, not that i necessarily want to be included in this whole crayon arguement, because - i mean... whatever... but i remember a while back working in FormZ that they had a 3D cursor that vanished w/ the model - meaning i could tell which point i was snapping to in a crowded perspective wireframe because the 3 lines intersected in vanishing 3D space... this was nice.

[irwin]

So here is the method we devised and I modified to fit Revit.

Batch delete file (scary eh)

[path to folders]
' delete all Autocad backup files
del /s /f *.bak
'delete all Revit family backups
del /s /f *.0.rfa
'delete all Revit project backups
del /s /f *.0.rvt

All this talk of deleting backup files scares me. I want to point out something to watch out for.

Every program that runs on Windows uses Windows utilities for file storage and retrieval. In case you haven't noticed, Windows has bugs! :sad: Sometimes, Windows will clobber a file beyond recognition with no warning. I have encountered this more frequently when saving across a network, but that doesn't mean there are no bugs that would cause Windows to clobber a file saved locally. This isn't something that happens often, but when it does you need to make sure the consequences are not catastrophic.

Imagine this nightmare scenario. You put the finishing touches on a very large file that you've been working on for 2 years (in Revit or otherwise) . You save and close the file. Since you think you're done, you delete all the backup versions. Two weeks later you try to open the file. Oh, no, it fails to open. Fortunately (you think), your weekly backup utility has a copy of the file saved a week ago on another disk. You try to open that one. Of course, it has the same problem, since the error was introduced at the moment the file was saved by the application. When your backup utility had archived this file it had overwritten the previous backup. You send the file to the software vendor but they can do nothing with it. So, you've just lost 2 years of work. :banghead:

To my knowledge, nothing this catastrophic has ever happened with Revit, but we had a few scares. Please don't let this happen to you.

The only way to be sure you haven't lost everything is to have a file around that you've already successfully opened. That's why, when Revit is purging backups it always keeps the version of the file that you opened in the current session (at least for non-workset files). If by some calamity (e.g., Windows ;-) ) all versions of the file saved in a session have problems you still have something to go back to.

I know those backup files are rarely used, but you want to make sure you've got something if you ever need it.

[iru69]

Irwin - all good points.

The problem is that Revit scatters backup files *everywhere* on the hard drive. It doesn't even name them conveniently! - so that even within a single folder, they can't be selected all at once. Come up with a better way of storing Revit backup files and people won't be writing scripts to get rid of them.

[cphubb]

Irwin,

Good point on the backup. We have had that problem with Autocad. Save a file delete the backup and bang the new file will not open at all. No recover no nothing.

However I learned to "properly" backup our files on a regular basis. We do a full back every Monday night and a diff backup every other night and recycle tapes every 6 weeks. Therefore we have 6 weeks up backups for any file being worked on.

We have run into trouble when we go to open files that are older and have the corruption problem. But we have a policy of making pdf files when the project is generally complete so at least we have some work. With Autocad you only lose a sheet not the entire model.

We have not had a Revit model go bad without a backup available, but I suspect it will only be a matter of time. We did have someone delete our entire directory of modified detail components from the network drive and before anybody noticed (doing lots of Schematic and few construction documents) we had passed the 6 week limit and bang they were gone. :banghead:

The flip side of the coin though is chewing up my file space. We had several people who left the default backup setting on (10) and after creating large files with lots of stuff had consumed 2-3GB of space for one project. If I did that with all of my projects I would blow my server out of the water. De frag already chokes on some Revit files because of the size.

As we get better at it the problem will get worse.

Microsoft will just have to make bug free software :screwy:

[janunson]

All this talk of deleting backup files scares me.

Me too. I want to keep all my backup files... I'd just like to be able to specify where so that my working folders don't get so cluttered, and so i can posibly split servers (having a backup location other than the project folder)

[SkiSouth]

I think Irwin and the factory have it correct. Not saying having the option of a path alternative to store backup ins is not a reasonable request though (one of my pet peeves - installations defaulting to "c" drive - just slowing down the machines performance usually by consuming the default drive). Anyway - Having over 20 years experience with CAD -(10 years as an AutoCAD consulant) , you can never have too many backups. Yesterday, I stuck a 4. gig backup DVD in the drive to have it read "Please put a valid disk in the drive" - Fortunately, I had another disk, but man - just threw it in the trash...Also, I've lost whole harddrives before. GLADLY paying the $180.00 for the software to recover from the apparent virus - Aside: R-tools Technology R-Studio - can restore across a network. Need a new harddrive of the same size to copy to. Can restore from old FAT tables or rebuild them. it works... While the backup files are inconvenient, I've gone back to the 4th backup more than once to change "back to what you had before" for the client or (remember the factory upgrade issue) to get to something that would work with a roof I had in release 6 vs 7. Anyway, I think a simple selection for file location in the options category would solve it.

[iru69]

While were on the subject of Revit backup files - another thing that I find annoying is that they have the same file extension - so when you go to open a project or family, you get hit with sorting through potentially dozens of backup files looking for the current file. On too many occasions, I've accidentally opened the backup file instead of the the current file...

Having a Revit backup file extension could filter out the backup files (by default) from within Revit and make it easier to sort out the backups from the current files from within Windows Explorer.