A New take on Keynotes

[mibzim]

I have posted so many times on keynotes coz i can't get them to do what we want, but i have come up with a solution that seems to work ok so far... sorta!

Our office uses a notation format that lists the element keyword found in the spec on the first line, the material / type in the next line, the colour, and then the finish:

eg INSULATED WALL PANEL
metal faced insulation core
ocean blue
satin finish

The current keynote method just doesn't cope with this and its taken me ages to come up with a solution. I have totally disregarded the "keynotes" feature and added the 4 parameters to all categories as shared type parameters. Then created a tag that shows these 4 parameters.

Works well, coz each element is assigned unique parameters which can be scheduled in a multi category schedule (apart from system familes), and editted in the view or in the schedule. Also, all similar elements get exactly the same note, so we avoid confusion and don't have to type it up every time.

The only problem so far is not being able to tag floors, roofs, railings and sweeps. Also you can't just create one schedule for these parameters because of the system familes not showing up in multi--category schedules. I couldn't even create a "roof tag" or "floor tag" or "railing tag" to replace my multicategory tag for these elements. Any ideas why?

I'd be interested to hear what users think of this method, and if any of the Australians think it might work for them and if not how they are getting around this.

[sbrown]

you can tag floors now, still no roofs.

[rjcrowther]

This looks promising to me.

My comments are from the context of doing mainly residential extensions.

I haven't even broached this subject with my use of Revit yet as it just looked too hard to make a start with. Certainly the keynoting system as shipped with Revit is not a lot of use to me.

My method to date has been to type a lot of notes which I am quite sick of doing. I have used tags to point to a section view of the construction element (a legend) but I don't like the way that I am not directly tying the specification and drawings together. This is one of the aspects of your idea that appeals to me.

Another is consistency with notes. I spend far too much time copying and pasting notes around the place to make sure they are consistent. I also don't believe it need to say as much as I do and a lot of it is meaningless -'Colorbond gutter and fascia to match existing. Refer Specification.' A tag that says this, in less words, with more meaning, is a summary of the speci, and is consistent, has a lot of appeal to me.

I can't help with and explanation on the tagging - sorry.

In response to the last paragraph - I think this might work for me and am going to put in on the list of things to do (a pretty long list unfortunately). This idea, from my perspective, is the most suitable one I have heard of yet.

Rob

PS. I don't suppose you have any thoughts on these stupid general notes that we litter our drawings with - you know, the ones that:

tell the builder to follow Australian Standards and the BCA,
say to measure the thing first
to follow dimensions and not to scale off the drawing
fix up the areas they had to cut back to allow for the new construction
do something about termites
make sure the stormwater is correctly taken care of
etc, etc, etc,

[mibzim]

PS. I don't suppose you have any thoughts on these stupid general notes that we litter our drawings with - you know, the ones that...

Thanks Rob. A lot of that we just include in our titleblock.... but i guess you are talking more about the instruction type notes we need to add to the drawings. Haven't got there yet, but there was an ealier post where ppl were talking about how they included those, although i don't think it ended up being much use to me. User keynotes i think.

Does no one else have any comments on noting up drawings!?!? I'm really surprised, because it takes soooo much time and the keynotes tool just doesn't cut it for me - or am i missing something? Anyone?