Dumb annotation in Legends

[ron.sanpedro]

What are people doing to address annotation in Door and Window Frame legends? I had desperately hoped that a standard detail callout would work, but no joy! So I am trying to create something that mimicks a Revit detail callout but works like an AutoCad callout, ie it is dumb as a stone. Ideally I would like to make a new annotation subcategory, so I can show the dumb ones in red. Actually, can I do the same thing with my family that the section and level bubbles do, specifically make it show up red for dumb on screen, but still print black?

Sure would be nice if a Legend was fully functional, meaning we could dimension layers of a partition type, use standard callouts, etc. Maybe in 10?

Best,
Gordon

[bbeck]

I'm looking at using Schedule Keys setup for head/jamb/threshold conditions to key in detail callouts. It's dumb text but if it's wrong in one spot on the schedule, it's wrong everywhere. If someone has another solution I'm all ears, just testing this idea out in the past few days.

[jspartz]

What are people doing to address annotation in Door and Window Frame legends? I had desperately hoped that a standard detail callout would work, but no joy! So I am trying to create something that mimicks a Revit detail callout but works like an AutoCad callout, ie it is dumb as a stone.

In the legend, go to the Drafting bar and click Symbol. There you have all your "dumb" annotation families. If you want to change the text in them to say something different, open the family and change the sample text for the label, maybe you want it blank. The only bad thing is that if you want the same annotation multiple times with different text, you'll have to do it manually. Otherwise just make a keynote family the way you want the symbol to look, load it in and put it in using a user keynote with no leader. With user keynotes, it will let you type in any letter/number combo you want.

If you are wanting to mimic a detail callout, it's a little more complicated. I guess you could make a keynote that looks the same, and then have the sheet number at the bottom as static text in the keynote family and then have the detail number as the keynote label.

[ron.sanpedro]

In the legend, go to the Drafting bar and click Symbol. There you have all your "dumb" annotation families. If you want to change the text in them to say something different, open the family and change the sample text for the label, maybe you want it blank. The only bad thing is that if you want the same annotation multiple times with different text, you'll have to do it manually. Otherwise just make a keynote family the way you want the symbol to look, load it in and put it in using a user keynote with no leader. With user keynotes, it will let you type in any letter/number combo you want.

If you are wanting to mimic a detail callout, it's a little more complicated. I guess you could make a keynote that looks the same, and then have the sheet number at the bottom as static text in the keynote family and then have the detail number as the keynote label.

Wow, so close and yet so far. Or I am still doing something wrong? I dropped a callout head, and I go to properties of the annotation, and there is nothing there for instance parameters! I was expecting to change an instance parameter, manually for each insertion. Do I actually have to create a different family for every insertion? Am I missing the logic somewhere, as this seems like madness. I wonder why (from a programming standpoint) you can't have the detail tag actually refer to a detail, and update sheet and location info automatically?
Also, the next thing I tried was to do the same thing in a drafting view. I had hoped to get the same list, but I only see North Arrow and Centerline? Huh? Is there no way to get simple annotations in a Drafting View?
Hopefully I am being dense and you can take some glee in setting me straight! ;)

Thanks,
Gordon

[bbeck]

Oops, just now I realized that you're talking about keying into Legends and not the Schedule itself, which is what I'm doing.

[ron.sanpedro]

Oops, just now I realized that you're talking about keying into Legends and not the Schedule itself, which is what I'm doing.

Yeah, the legend. To some extant we are doing this because we have always done this, but I do think there is value in calling out the head and jamb details in the frame legend. But the symbols in Legend view seem even dumber than AutoCAD. Not only can I not put in a detail callout that references an actual detail, and have the callout update if the detail is moved on or between sheets, I can't even seem to get a callout where I can manually change the text in a particular instance. As far as I can tell I need a new family for ever detail being referenced.
Help, this can't be right. I have to be missing something.

As for the keys in the Schedules, I had not looked into that enough previously, so this has been a useful exercise in that respect. Thanks.

Gordon