Project Shortcuts

[Scott D Davis]

Want a way to quickly jump from project folder to project folder from within either the Open dialog box or Load Family dialog box from within Revit?

Crete a folder on your local machine, where ever you like, named whatever you like. (mine is on the desktop, called Project Shortcuts) In that folder, create shortcuts that point to the network locations of your projects. (or just go to your job folder, righ-click and choose 'create shortcut', then copy/move it to the folder)

Now, in Revit, go to Settings>Options>File Locations tab. The bottom half of the window is called "libraries". Click the new button, browse to your shortcuts folder, and then give it a 'library' name. Click ok.

Now when you need to open a RVT file from a network location, go to File>Open, and your Shortcut Folder will be listed in the left-nav bar. Click on it, and your shortcuts will appear in the file area. Double click the shortcut to your project file, and it takes you right to it.

This is a huge time saver for me, rather than scrolling through all of our projects on our network. Hope it helps you too! (unless you already knew about this..... :D )

[Scott Hopkins]

Good one Scott! I make shortcuts in the Revit open/load area too, but I perfer your method of creating one folder with all the shortcuts in. Much cleaner that way. :)

[Steve_Stafford]

"Like minds"...I've got the same exact config...

[Danny Polkinhorn]

Along those same lines:

You can create a toolbar in your windows taskbar that points to a folder. Right-click on the taskbar and select Toolbars > New Toolbar... Browse to a folder (like your Project Shortcuts folder).

Voila! A toolbar of the folder items. Click on the two little arrows and you can quickly access all your project folders.

Likewise,
Hope it helps you too! (unless you already knew about this..... :D )

[Scott D Davis]

I've got that one too!

[beegee]

Thanks for the tips, guys.

Any idea how to get rid of other folders in that dialogue, like "My Network Places, My Documents, etc, " which I don't really want to see there, ( and aren't put there by Revit anyway) ?

[jbalding48677]

Along those same lines:

You can create a toolbar in your windows taskbar that points to a folder. Right-click on the taskbar and select Toolbars > New Toolbar... Browse to a folder (like your Project Shortcuts folder).

Voila! A toolbar of the folder items. Click on the two little arrows and you can quickly access all your project folders.

Likewise,
Hope it helps you too! (unless you already knew about this..... :D )

I LIKE IT!!! Thanks Danny Boy

[David Sammons]

Thanks for the tip Scott. I always wondered how I could add project folders to the Revit open/load area. I have a shortcut folder on my desktop for projects but having it within this area of Revit is very convenient.

And Danny, the added tool bar for project folders is very nice.

Dave S.

[Henry D]

Along with a library for Revit Projects I also have one for my Autocad Files so I can readily access my .dwg files for linking or importing - that also saves a lot of time. One nice thing about also having a shortcut icon on the desktop is that you can start Revit by opening up only the project you are working on instead of always getting a new project which you have to close when you use the Revit icon.

[PeterJ]

...and you can drag and drop families from that toolbar.

You have no graphical display, but if you know which family you need it is pretty quick.

Thanks, that's a really helpful tip

[Danny Polkinhorn]

Any idea how to get rid of other folders in that dialogue, like "My Network Places, My Documents, etc, " which I don't really want to see there, ( and aren't put there by Revit anyway) ?

Revit, it appears, uses it's own custom dialog. For all implementations of the Common Dialog, like in Notepad, you can use a tool called TweakUI from Microsoft. It allows you to change the places list (along with some other interesting items). You can find it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

[ajayholland]

My favorite file management shortcut was a utility called Dialog Helper. It was a part of PowerDesk 4, a free windows explorer alternative by Ontrack Software. Unfortunately, in preparing this post, I found that the product was sold to Aladdin Systems, and then discontinued.

Dialog Helper adds a menu list of recently used files and folders to the open/save file dialog box. Useful is most applications, not just Revit. Interestingly enough, it is not compatible with AutoCAD.

http://www.zoogdesign.com/forums/phpBB2/download.php?id=1720

There were lots of these utilities when I was a Mac user, but Windowz apps like this are hard to find. If anyone knows of a similar product, I’d be interested in the info.

-AJH

[beegee]

Revit, it appears, uses it's own custom dialog. For all implementations of the Common Dialog, like in Notepad, you can use a tool called TweakUI from Microsoft. It allows you to change the places list (along with some other interesting items). You can find it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

Thanks Danny,

I'll try that.