"Unplaced" Rooms/Areas

[Chad Smith]

Is it just me or is this new feature really annoying?

I like to think that when I delete a room or area from my project that it is removed for good. It's annoying that I now have to go into my schedule to delete it for a second time. Kind of reminds me of Windows Explorer or Email clients and their Deleted Items folder, or even Windows Vista.

[tomnewsom]

I Agree with you. Delete means delete in my book.

[zenomail105021]

I agree. Good point.

Bill Maddox

[patricks]

heh I noticed that Unplaced reminder popping up the other day when working on a project, but I didn't realize it was a new feature. I guess I had confused it with the reminder that came up in previous versions when you deleted a room tag but the room was still there.

[Scott D Davis]

The concept with 'unplaced' rooms is that you have the ability to input the program before you set out any of the walls or rooms. You can create a room schedule before you do anything else, and put in all of your programmatic requirements. As you design, you can add a room from your program and then its "placed" and will show accordingly in the schedule.

If you delete a room and it deletes it from the project completely, one may forget that it was a required piece of the program.

[Steve_Stafford]

We lost the feature for two releases and I'm glad it is back. It was more tiresome to have to recreate rooms that needed to be relocated during design changes. Moving rooms outside a boundary meant error messages and moving between levels meant cut and paste. Deleting a room meant losing information. Now you can just delete a room and it will show up under the available rooms for placement when the design team is ready to use it again. On projects with 100's, even 1000's of rooms, it can be hard enough to manage them.

If you want to remove a room from the program just delete it from a schedule instead.

[aaronrumple]

I do a lot of preliminary design work. And as Scott said, I put in the program in advance. For me when I delete a room in past versions it ment I needed to rework the program. The only way I could keep the building program intact was to move a room off to the side of the page - along with all the errors and prompts that would cause while reworking.

For me this is one of the more usefull tools in the 2009 release.

[eegbertson]

The change to rooms was made to avoid a huge amount of data loss associated with a room object by forcing final removal from the place where the associated information can be viewed.

This was chosen over a warnings with options as users who would delete a room were often not the same person that carefully entered all the data in a multi-user environment. It was a very painful issue for many offices.

Rooms removed from the model can be placed back into the model with the room tool by selecting them from the option bar when the room tool is active.

To address the possibility of un-placed rooms polluting a sheet schedule, each schedule has a filter that can be accessed in the option bar. It can be set to show, hide or isolate the un-placed and un-enclosed rooms. If you hide them in a schedule on a sheet and isolate them in a duplicate "working" schedule. Here they can later be deleted with a few clicks. (Drag the mouse across all rows to select)

Rooms are a funny object in Revit so research went into understanding how they were being used and solving a very painful problem. Many aspects were considered including the multi-user environment. Several designs were considered including an “un-place room” command but they did not fit within the workflows identified by research. Users were deleting rooms despite warnings about the schedule data loss. The final design sought to avoid complicated non continuable warnings or settings to change default behavior.

[Chad Smith]

Thanks for the comments. I see where you guys are now coming from.

I don't know if it is deliberately designed this way, or if it's program design laziness, but there is a growing trend in the Revit UI to just assume that all users want to go down the same path when there are 2 or more choices.

In this case the Factory has assumed that all users want to retain the room objects for further use.
What's wrong with an alert to ask something like; "Do you want to retain these rooms/areas for future use?" Yes/No
A quick one off alert at the time of deletion, is far quicker than going into the schedule, selecting all objects to delete, then deleting.

[twiceroadsfool]

Chad, i totally agree with you.

It would *almost* be acceptable for me, if (like with room tag deletion) simply activting the warning dialogue would give you the OPTION to delete the room, but it doesnt. Now i HAVE to go in to the schedule, and delete the room. Veru frustrating, considering how much work we do shifting spaces around for a leasing department for a retail client.

I agree, the option to keep the data is nice. What it should AT LEAST do, is ask if you would like to remove the room entirely, like it used to when you deleted a room TAG. Manadating deletion from the schedule is no good, in my humble opinion.

[dbaldacchino]

I'm very glad this feature made it back, although if I recally in 8 and 8.1, Revit asked you whether you wanted to delete it totally from the project or leave it "unplaced". It worked fine like that and that workflow would fit exactly with what Chad and Maller are talking about. We typically don't want to delete rooms because we start inputting the program first so if a room gets removed, we want to make sure we keep it there so we can later see what was added after the program and what spaces were subtracted.

[dbaldacchino]

eggbertson, thanks for pointing the filter out! I totally missed that. In 2008 we were filtering the schedule for the Area parameter to be >0 and that got rid of the unplaced rooms. Vice versa, we filtered for Area <0 to schedule only unplaced & unenclosed spaces.

[Wes Macaulay]

I too want to say that this functionality is preferred over 2008. Thanks to the Factory for bringing this back!

[iru69]

I also agree with all of Chad's points. Nine out of ten times, this is just another in the ever growing list of Revit annoyances. I actually appreciate the concept of keeping rooms for later use, but it should ask whether you want to keep it or delete it.

The explanation that users on project teams would delete rooms willy-nilly and so therefore we all have to suffer continues a growing tradition of Revit being too smart for its own good and ultimately just pissing users off. Thumbs down.

[Steve_Stafford]

The explanation that users on project teams would delete rooms willy-nilly and so therefore we all have to suffer continues a growing tradition of Revit being too smart for its own good and ultimately just pissing users off. Thumbs down.I recall users complaining about the message we received in the past. If they did do that instead I wager there would be someone moaning about that. I'm glad I don't have to delete rooms and recreate them anymore and I don't mind deleting a bunch of rooms in a schedule. For those who are bothered perhaps they can provide a message you can choose to permanently dismiss in a future release?

[twiceroadsfool]

The message doesnt bother me at all... so much as the fact that the message doesnt offer me the capabilities to "HARD DELETE" the room. Going to the schedule might not seem inconvenient to you, but with 7 models linked together, we really only had to go in to one schedule before.

Now we have to go in to all 7...

[eegbertson]

All,

I am noting the desire for an option to delete on the expanded warning.

Just a note:
The existing behavior was not implemented to be lazy or second guess.

There was a great deal of feedback from research that showed when someone on a team viewed the previous warning about schedule data being deleted they ignored it. This is probably due to an immunity to error messages which was another reason to try to avoid solving this without resorting to a full warning message.

Thank you for the discussion as there are many implications and use cases to all approaches and this helps the complete picture become more clear.

[Wes Macaulay]

This is probably due to an immunity to error messages which was another reason to try to avoid solving this without resorting to a full warning message.
:mrgreen:

We have all become immune to error messages, eh? The current functionality is certainly preferable, since having to deal with a "Yes or No" dialogue before continuing would be more of a drag than having to go back on occasion and knock out a few items in the schedule.

I am glad to see that serious thought went into this decision.

[dbaldacchino]

In the older implementation with 8 and 8.1, there was an option but as noted, no one looked at it or understood it and it did cause issues with people accepting the default and thus deleting the room entirely (am I recalling this right?). I prefer it the way it is now; if we want a dialog, it should default to not deleting the space and require a little extra effort to actually delete it.

[twiceroadsfool]

I guess im in the minority of thinking its not preferable, so ill just have to harp on our project teams to head to the schedules to delete the extra rooms... :)

No worries. :)

But FWIW, users that feel "immune to reading the yellow warning box" get to deal with one irrate Aaron Maller when he finds 400 warnings in a project file...

[dbaldacchino]

Don't mess with Maller! Well, on a different but similar topic....I still don't understand why the room tag enhancement (to follow the room when such room is moved) was implemented this way. What percentage of time do you need to leave the tag outside of the room? I can't figure the logic. If a user clicks OK when a room is moved instead of "Move Tags", you can't fix all tags that reference a room at once because the warning is tied to the tag, not the room. Each tag will contribute to the zillion warnings about tags being outside the room. At least you can select all tags in a plan and access the related warings to move them back at once. Or just delete them all and then use Tag all not Tagged.

I guess this can be considered a thread hijack....my apologies :D

[twiceroadsfool]

I agree with you there... But id like a Move to Room OR an "Enable leader" option. A lot of the times i get the warning because i just yanked the room tag out of the room, LOL... Of course i dont want to put it back, DOH!

Hehehehehe...

[dbaldacchino]

Oh that's a very good point. I guess that the software needs to distinguish between a tag being moved VS a room. If I had it my way, I would want the leader to turn on automatically when I pull a tag out of a space, but when I move a room, I want the tag to follow automatically.

[twiceroadsfool]

LOVE it. Keep em coming!

This reminds me... ive had like... 8 topics ive wanted to write about in my blog, and no effin time....

Back on topic though, the reason i like the *soft warning* (yellow one) that gives you the option to waste the room, is everyone wins:

The people who want to save metadata can ignore it (shudder) and not have an extra step
The people like me can click the warning, select the room, and waste it, without having to bother going in schedule.

So i deal with one extra step, instead of two... Seems like a fair compromise, but i suppose it is what it is...

[DoTheBIM]

FWIW I'm with you Aaron. Unfortunately not everyone does "programs" or needs to. But the majority rules, or rather the ones with connections do. ;)

[iru69]

I guess im in the minority of thinking its not preferable...
What makes you say that? The vast majority of users will just be confused by this new feature. Revit's already too much of a "programmer's" application. This kind of application behavior just adds to it.

I'm very sensitive to endless yes/no dialog boxes popping up every time you want to do something. I don't think this is really one of those cases where it would be like that in practice.

It did remind me of the Windows Explorer behavior where if you select a file and press delete, it sends it to the recycle bin. If you press shift-delete, it bypasses the recycle bin and is permanently deleted. How about something like that?

[dbaldacchino]

It's not a new feature...it USED to be there before the room object was added as we know it today. Lots of us have requested it to come back. I think it makes logical sense as you can add a room in a schedule without placing it. To me a room is a "state of mind". You can't add a door to a schedule without adding it to a project because it's an actual object. A "room" is not a tangible object.

[iru69]

Okay, sorry, the "returned" feature. Whatever.

I think most everyone's already acknowledged (including me) that being able to add rooms without placing them is useful.

I don't understand why you seem to be suggesting that we can't all be (relatively) happy and have an immediate way of removing rooms from a project?

It's not a new feature...it USED to be there before the room object was added as we know it today...

[rganter.97143]

The unplaced room feature is pretty good but - to broaden the discussion a bit - there are other improvements to be made to turn Revit into a more useful programming/conceptual design tool:
1. Allow cut & paste or other means of importing a room schedules from Excel/Word/Test file.
2. Implement a numerical and VISUAL "program size" property for rooms consisting of an area parameter and and optional length or width parameter, so that when you place a room in the drawing without walls, the program room size will be represented on screen by a colored rectangle of the appropriate size. This will allow for rough room layouts without having to worry about walls or room separation lines yet.

Wishful thinking?

[dbaldacchino]

Okay, sorry, the "returned" feature. Whatever.

I think most everyone's already acknowledged (including me) that being able to add rooms without placing them is useful.

I don't understand why you seem to be suggesting that we can't all be (relatively) happy and have an immediate way of removing rooms from a project?

There is....when the yellow warning box comes up, expand it and click delete, as Maller pointed out already. Isn't that easy enough? If you don't delete it this way, simply filter the schedule for unplaced rooms , select them all at once and delete them. Sounds straigh forward to me.

[Chad Smith]

There is....when the yellow warning box comes up, expand it and click delete,
Actually, there is no option to 'delete' when the error box is expanded. See attached image.

[dbaldacchino]

Actually, there is no option to 'delete' when the error box is expanded. See attached image.

My bad, from Maller's post, I thought there was a way (hadn't tried it myself).


Back on topic though, the reason i like the *soft warning* (yellow one) that gives you the option to waste the room, is everyone wins:

The people who want to save metadata can ignore it (shudder) and not have an extra step
The people like me can click the warning, select the room, and waste it, without having to bother going in schedule.

So i deal with one extra step, instead of two... Seems like a fair compromise, but i suppose it is what it is...

This got me thinking a little....here's how I think it should function:

a) If the room is created in a schedule by adding a row, then when you remove it from the model, it should return to the schedule (as it does now);
b) If the room was created on the fly with the room command, when deleted from the model, it should be deleted in its entirety.

[Chad Smith]

How are you guys even adding in new rows directly from the schedule? The 'New' button is grayed out for me.

[dbaldacchino]

Hmmm, must be the Australian version ;)

Take a look at the screen shot. You have to place focus on the schedule window. The New button isn't greyed out and this has been working this way since 9.1.

[Chad Smith]

You must have an extra special US version. :?

[eegbertson]

This got me thinking a little....here's how I think it should function:

a) If the room is created in a schedule by adding a row, then when you remove it from the model, it should return to the schedule (as it does now);
b) If the room was created on the fly with the room command, when deleted from the model, it should be deleted in its entirety.


We think alike. This design was considered but we ran into multiple offices that added the data after the room was created in the model so it was not reliable.. It also seemed to introduce inconsistent and semi secret behavior that we would like to avoid.

At this point adding a delete callback to the expanded warning should save people from having to go to the schedule but prevent casual deletion of the rooms.

For more transparency the new schedule filter was specifically added to allow non placed rooms to persist longer but be easy to isolate or hide in schedules. As the project stabilizes they can be removed.

[twiceroadsfool]

Actually, there is no option to 'delete' when the error box is expanded. See attached image.

Exactly. Thats all im asking for, is that "Error 1" to go bck to me having the option to select the room and delete it.

THat would suffice perfectly for most of our needs, if i can beat it in to the operators... :)

[tenghui2000]

I would prefer to have room area showing "0" if the room is not placed in the project. The return value for the area parameter is area not string (like the one in Revit 2009 as "not placed"). For instance, if we want to compare the difference of the room area between client's requirement and the deigned, we will probably list all required rooms in the room schedule and place them in the project. It is likely that during the deign process some rooms might not be able to put into the project, and their room area showing "not placed". The problem is that we cannot subtract area by string. Any solutions and work around?

[DaveP]

As long as this post got revived - I meant to comment on this before.

I'd like the ability to filter "Not Placed" and "Not Enclosed" separately.
Lots of times, early in the project, we've got issues with walls not connecting properly, and Rooms end up not Enclosed. They still belong there, and we still want to see them in the Schedule. I just don't have time to figure out why it's not properly Enclosed right now.

I'd like to see the filter as:

All
Not Enclosed
Not Placed
Not Placed or Enclosed
And the inverse of each

Oh, and BTW, yes I do like the way it works now

[Mike Sealander]

Interestingly, the Help describes unplaced rooms and how to place them back again. Who'd a thunk?
Having followed this thread and reviewed the recently discovered Help documentation on rooms, I am now happy with the way the program works, which is not to say it can't work better.