how can you load revit diferently

[jarod.tulanowski]

:) Might be a crazy question,
in acad you can assign different profiles to the desktop icon to load the different profiles. In Revit is there a way to do that to load a different ini file?

we have so much client driven content that changed on a daily basis. that while in the office we want to be able to connects to those files on the network and not from the c-drive, but when we are out of the office and want to use the out of the box Revit ini file you have to change the ini file to point to the local files.

revit network.ini
revit local.ini

[david.kingham]

Would be a nice feature, only thing I can think of for now is to have a batch file next to the icon that the user has to run that will replace the ini file each time, one for in the office, one for away, or maybe a batch that would run at logon that could detect if you connected to the office network...if so run the networkini batch, if not run the local batch....hmm will have to talk to the IT guys :)

[patricks]

What another user posted that I have also done is just create a small file with only one view in it that acts like a splash screen. Then instead of using a Revit shortcut on your desktop to open the program and load your template, instead put that small file on your desktop and click that to make Revit open. That way Revit will load faster, and won't take the time to open the template every time, because most of the time you just need to open an existing file.

So if you do that, you can open it the same way either at home or at the office, and then go open whatever file you need to work on. And with this method, you can still click the New button should you need to start a new project w/ the template.

Of course there is still only one place for a default template, but you could keep a copy of the template on your hard drive and instead of clicking the New button, go to File > New and then you can quickly browse for a template file if you're at home and not on the network.

[cphubb]

We always point the ini file to our network. On the laptops we use the offline file feature in windows to synchronize any folder or drive that needs to be available for Revit.

One of our laptops that is offline all the time (read most) has extra libraries on the c drive and extra entries in the ini file for those libraries. It is a little extra work to find stuff on that computer but it makes the process really easy. I periodically copy our network library over there to update the content but that is it.

My laptop synchronizes the libraries and project directories I choose every time I login. I just undock and go. Looking My Computer it appears that I have s: and x: and p: drives and Revit opens as it always does.

As someone noted you could create a batch file that would copy a predefined ini file to your Revit directory and then launch Revit. That brings me back to the Autocad days when you had large batch files to launch Autocad and set all of your path and other variables. We had multiple ways of launching Autocad for different types of projects using different menus files etc.

[patricks]

Hey where can I find out more about this synchronization feature? Could be done using file transfer somehow, like with a removable USB storage device? I'd love to be able to replicate our server family libraries on my home PC, and then somehow be able to automatically update whatever files have changed on the server. Obviously, though, I can't actually bring my home PC in here to the office and connect to the server.

This of course would all be in the interim until we ever get Windows Server 2003 so I can actually map our server network drive from my house.

[brett05]

To get offline files working, you would first need to be connected to the network/computer that has the files. Without that, there's not too much else you can do with OOTB windows besides copy the libraries.
Here's an alternative to using the offline files tool.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx

Cheers, Brett

[jarod.tulanowski]

wow looks like I have some research to do. so many ideas to experiment with.

:) thanks so much for all of the feedback.

[david.metcalf]

How about setting up a network drive and set it to Synchronize?
I am sure there is a downside other than time to update the two locations.

Oops! nevermind, I am sorry, was scanning the posts and a kneekerk response came out.