Locking Groups

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Is there a way to prevent a group from being ungrouped? I need to allow users to edit a group (for unit layout revisions) but I want to ensure that the changes aren't made t a single unit that has been ungrouped.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

No takers?

[Martin P]

Not 100% sure what you are aiming for? Dont know if it will help at all, but if I wanted a group to be "locked" I suppose I would nest it as a group within a group, ie make it a group a couple of times so you would have to ungroup it a couple of times to edit it??

I think you are basically talking about xrefs right? could you experiment with linked files instead of groups, or even expoerted and linked dwgs (xrefs!)

I am at the moment working on a dormitory, and have made the room layouts groups, it seems to be working very well so far - apart from notes, which are mirrored, they rotate 180 degrees, I am about to try grouping the curtain walls that are on the exterior, no idea how it is going to work out yet......


edited - curtain wall groups worked OK - but if ends try to wall join etc it can give a few problems....

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Thanks for the reply Martin.
This question arose out of frustration with a user who didn't know enough about how groups worked. (don't blame the student, blame the teacher right? :roll: )
A housing project with multiple units, units were laid out as groups, copied, mirrored etc.. Detail callouts were created so additional information could be added at a larger scale. Once done, revisions were required to the unit layout. Rather than editing the group the user exploded the group (in the callout view) and made the changes. Needless to say the changes were not propagated through the project. The next user had to go through and re-place al the occurances to make the changes stick.
I would like the group to be editable, so anyone can make changes, but I'd like to have a lock on the group so only one user can ungroup it. This would ensure that the group is changed, not just a single, ungrouped instance of it. Am I a control freak or what?
I understand that making sure everyone is aware of how things work is the best approach but, even with Revit, the cowboy mentality still manages to creep in once in a while.
I'll give the external group/linked file approach a try and see if that's easier for the project team to handle.

[Wes Macaulay]

I guess you could try regrouping the new group and give it a new name, then select the others and swap them out for the new group. And if all the unit plan groups are in one workset, once someone's got that workset signed out, that should lock out anyone else from making changes. (In theory, anyway!)

[Martin P]

I see what you meant now, that would be a good thing I agree, password locked or something.... a couple of things I would like to wish for with groups - to be able to add more than one object at a time, instead of pick pick pick.... and to be able work directly in a group - ie just pick edit group the start to draw walls/lines etc...

I havent tried using externally saved goups for a while, i always ended up too much frustrated when they didnt behave :roll: . I may venture back and see how it goes. :o let us know if it works out for you or not.....