Revit Architecture 2010 Findings

[Matt Brennan]

Hey Everyone,

With the release of 2010 out now, rather than have a bunch of invidual threads of bugs (if any), features, and dislikes, lets keep it in one place.

[cliff collins]

It's already a mile long in the "Out there" forum.

Be prepared, thre'e not much positive stuff being said.

cheers.....................................

[RobG]

a bloody shame that people are so damn negative.

with that said, so far, i'm happy with the release, i have no major qualms, yes, getting used to the new layout won't be easy. I do however remain optimistic that it will work and make more sense. and as i read somewhere else from someone else (sorry can't quote the actual post) the old system was just like a ribbon but vertically placed, and definitly not self driven. i sense the new one will mean a reduction in clicking.

here's to the new, and moving on from the old!

[davidcobi]

Here are a few of the new features I've found and like about 2010.

- The spot slope tool will get a lot of use.
- Tools are labeled Model Line and Detail Line for more clarity.
- You can now set default worksets to open, during Save As in the Options button.
- Plotting in raster is (reportedly) much faster now.
- Wall Joins are multi-threaded in 2010 and can speed up view regeneration.
- When exporting to DWG, the option for "Xref view on sheets" is now unchecked by default.
- Saving quick access to toolbars was a good idea.

[dpasa]

Here are a few of the new features I've found and like about 2010.

- The spot slope tool will get a lot of use.
- Tools are labeled Model Line and Detail Line for more clarity.
- You can now set default worksets to open, during Save As in the Options button.
- Plotting in raster is (reportedly) much faster now.
- Wall Joins are multi-threaded in 2010 and can speed up view regeneration.
- When exporting to DWG, the option for "Xref view on sheets" is now unchecked by default.
- Saving quick access to toolbars was a good idea.

Great... and this is one year's work for 1-2 programmers...
Your list is a great example showing that Adesk has never seen the wishlist forum...
Especially the "export to dwg..." stuff is really HOT!!!

@robg... I am happy to see you like the new release, I don't... I don't like the fact that I pay for something I don't need and that nobody cares for what I need...

[Alex Page]

I reckon this thread was started to list things which have changed/improved/ dropped off - I for one will keep my emotional responses to myself...

Things I like so far (and I havent delved very deep):
1. Being able to put design options/ lineweight toggle/ workset buttons on the quick access bar and to be able to move the bar to below the ribbon - this means Im not nearly so negative about the ribbon as I was and you can tell what workset you are working on etc
2. I think the new massing tools are the beginning of a new bright future. Hopefully Autodesk will keep on improving this
3. Project browser - it remembers where it is placed
4. Filtering View Types - oh yeah! Means I can have all my work in progress sections etc filtered off my views on sheets within the templates- no more detail/section markers popping up in the wrong place, just on the deadline, just when your've printed...

Things I think are ...buggy?
1. Material editor - if you go to an elements properties clicking on the material parameter Revit now does NOT default to the material it was using; this has caught me out all the time (I happen to be setting up some renderings at the moment)

Thats all Ive noticed so far - but will keep posting as I find out more

[m.thomas]

4. Filtering View Types - oh yeah! Means I can have all my work in progress sections etc filtered off my views on sheets within the templates- no more detail/section markers popping up in the wrong place, just on the deadline, just when your've printed...


Hmm sounds interesting. I will have to look into this in more detail.

On a similar note sometimes we want sections/callouts visible on one set of scaled views but not on another differently scaled set of views. Using the 'hide at scales coarser than' option does not allways suit what you are trying to achieve leading to a lot of chasing around 'hiding them in view'.

What would be great if on the option bar when clicking section/callout there was an option to click called 'appears in views' where you could then select the views you want those callouts/sections to appear in as well as the parent view. This would be similar to the reference other view option.

OR even simpler right click on each view, go to properties and have an option there to select views you want that section/callout to appear in.

Does that make sense?

[ws]

The new Help/tooltips system is very good - I wish that had been available when I started with Revit. Hover for tooltip, extended hover for tooltip diagram, F1 for related Help.

Couldn't find Options, but then remembered where such things are in Office 2007 (click big 'R' icon top left and it is bottom of that drop down menu) so that I could turn on graphics acceleration.

Graphic performance much better for me (Vista 64, Ati FireGL V5600, latest driver 8.583) under Direct3D. The anti-aliased lines option seems to make little difference.

As a pen user I love the onscreen zooming controls.

The 'highly deadly for pen users' Press & Drag check box is now bottom right of screen.

More screen area is good, icons are tiny on my 1920 x 1200 30" display but I can live with that.

Overall, after some pain at losing the friendly old icons, I'd say they have done a thankless but necessary job in updating the interface and graphics system.

[Liz437]

I posted my notes through beta-testing in that 'other' thread, but I'll re-post them here where politics/personal opinions are being held out of it.

• Synchronize with Central - Could make more sense to new users, will have to re-write our standards book, & see how well it works with multiple users in file. I want to know how editing requests has changed (if it has) as its been pulled up in this menu- praying it flashes or something similar to worksharing monitor.

• Placement of many buttons in the ribbon - If we could rearrange the ribbons (maybe coming in a future release?) to match our workflow this would have serious bonus points. Still a bit jumpy & not as smooth as Id like, but the quick access toolbar gives me hope for more full-on customization (ex. 'Import CAD' would be buried for all of my users!)

• The browser remembers where you put it (woohoo!!) but tabs I pull out dont.....

• Coordination Review Report - When I ran one it didn’t put the period in '.html' after the file name, so it came out just 'project_reporthtml'

• Activate View on Sheet - Seems to be a bit glitchy- the button sometimes appears active when small without a view selected?

• Section Scope reference in plan doesn’t show unless you are dragging to change- glitchy?

• Section Properties - Still doesn’t change to a new workset when you change its type (if you draw as detail & change to section its workset remains as 'detail 1') - not a big deal just always bothered me.

• Measure Along an Element - Doesn’t Measure along a floor- only got it to measure a grid?

• 'Model Group>Load as group into open projects' is pretty dangerous if not trained properly, but I can see some really interesting uses for it. Almost every command opens the option to 'create group' - training about the proper use of groups going to be really important. I have always told users to avoid overuse of groups-(Isnt this best practice?) It really seems that create group is an option everywhere.

• In Revit Arch- there is info on structural analytical models; does this relate back to structural?

• Scope boxes appear to be a bit glitchy when moving back & forth between scope boxes & none- I cant get back to no scope box even when view properties say none.

• Family types of a mass includes 'lock' - what is that? Why only here?

• View tagging is glitchy - tags with improper numbers sometimes- will tag the same view with 2 different numbers.

• YOU CAN SET THE DEFAULT WORKSETS TO OPEN AS EDITABLE!!! THANK GOD!!!!

• Create New Local default checked on is fantastic- we will be getting rid of our batch routines!!

• When ribbons are pulled out- glitch- rt-clicking data shows up behind ribbon

• Quick access toolbar- How do you rearrange order without taking everything off & putting it back on? (Maybe in WU1?!?!)

• Keyboard Shortcuts - because of ribbon- must redo all of them? (Will be using more of them now.....)

Please, if you want to express personal opinions on this release, use the thread "Revit > Revit Community > Revit - Out There > 1st impression from Revit 2010... " instead of this thread. Lets try to use this thread for new features comments/questions instead of opinions?

[Wagurto]

I am with dpasa every year with a new release my expectation going to the roof to see some of the oldest wish list items are included in this release. But always its the same deception. I appreciate any improvement that Revit can offer but since we all are force to have a suscription the least autodesk can do is to listen to your custiomers and give them what they want!!!
I wonder how many people will buy this upgrade if the is a no susciption program and if Revit could save to a previous version?

[jcoe]

4. Filtering View Types - oh yeah! Means I can have all my work in progress sections etc filtered off my views on sheets within the templates- no more detail/section markers popping up in the wrong place, just on the deadline, just when your've printed...


Unless I am misunderstanding, but wouldn't "Hide Unreferenced View Tags" in the print dialog accomplish the same task. This too can be set up in the template file.

[aaronrumple]

Unless I am misunderstanding, but wouldn't "Hide Unreferenced View Tags" in the print dialog accomplish the same task. This too can be set up in the template file.

Na. He's talking about adding in a new elevation tag which goes on a sheet. Then it show in god knows which other views. Then you have to chase it down.

[m.thomas]

Couldn't find Options, but then remembered where such things are in Office 2007 (click big 'R' icon top left and it is bottom of that drop down menu) so that I could turn on graphics acceleration.

That one stumped me for 5 mins until I eventually found it too.

[m.thomas]

Hmmm, Have only upgraded one project so far and thought that 3D view performance was similar or slightly better than R2009.

Not so sure now. I opened the m_conference file from the training folder and in the 3d view hidden line mode the building totally disappears if I pan, move or rotate building. I's ok though in shaded mode.

Opened up the same file in R2009 and it maintains visibility whilst rotating in hidden line mode.

Will have to investigate further and consider whether to skip this release for production work. (They have my cash from subscription though).

My pc is getting on a bit, but I'm at the point where I do not want to get a new pc yet ...... hanging on for windows 7 so that we skip Vista. This is a totally Vista free office.

Win xp 32 bit sp3
Intel xeon(r) E5320 1.86GH'z quad core
4GB Ram with 3GB switch enabled
nvidia quodro fx550

[tomnewsom]

Remember that 3d acceleration is off by default, so turn it on before testing display performance!

[patricks]

Win xp 32 bit sp3
Intel xeon(r) E5320 1.86GH'z quad core
4GB Ram with 3GB switch enabled
nvidia quodro fx550

I, too, am running an FX550. Have you tried enabling hardware acceleration, and have you had any program stability issues? Which driver version are you running from nVIDIA?

I have had endless issues when starting a new blank template from scratch. Haven't tested much in an actual project file yet.

[ws]

Anyone else notice that the colours in sections/elevations in shaded view are more like the colours you chose for materials?

My wood doors used to come out yellow in Section if a woody brown colour was selected - now they are much more like the colour chosen.

In fact all the new colours look rather cool - the purple pre-selection highlighting and the blue for editing I like, but in plan View blue instead of red takes a wee bit of getting used to - but I like it.

It may be my imagination but the colors are generally, well, a bit 'nicer' or something ;) :?

[patricks]

I do not like the Blue color for selected objects at all, as it makes editable fields in view titles and title blocks much less distinguishable. It also makes the dimension text less noticeable as editable. I like the selected dimension to be a different color than the blue text which denotes it as something editable.

For that reason I set the selected objects' color back to Red, under the Options > Graphics tab.

[ws]

One small difference I am seeing between 2009 and 2010 is that in many upgraded projects' plans I have stone cills (sills?) Families which I use for drips over window heads and suchlike.

In 2010 these cills are visible in plan View even if above the cut plane whereas in 2009 they are not.

Editing the family in 2010 and turning off visibility of the solid in plan view makes them disappear again once loaded back into the project.

May be something to do with how they were converted or perhaps 2010 is just different.

[Mike Sealander]

William and everyone else posting:
Thanks! I'm at home on a Friday night, and being able to hear your comments, wisdom and frustration included, makes my life better.

[mruehr]

I reckon this thread was started to list things which have changed/improved/ dropped off - I for one will keep my emotional responses to myself...

Things I like so far (and I havent delved very deep):

4. Filtering View Types - oh yeah! Means I can have all my work in progress sections etc filtered off my views on sheets within the templates- no more detail/section markers popping up in the wrong place, just on the deadline, just when your've printed...


Thats all Ive noticed so far - but will keep posting as I find out more

I got really exited about this one....till i realised it is still references back to the Sheet where the Section or Elevation is hidden
now why would i want to reference to a section on a sheet where it cannot be seen ?????
If this is a bug hope it is fixed soon
If not ........WHY

[Scott Womack]

I got really exited about this one....till i realised it is still references back to the Sheet where the Section or Elevation is hidden
now why would i want to reference to a section on a sheet where it cannot be seen ?????


This behavior was introduced when they first made it possible to Hide an Element in a view, and probaly has something to do with the code used to do this. For a while in plan views, you could remove the plan from that sheet, STC, then place it back on its sheet. This fixed it before. Not sure if the last WU3 in 2009 and in 2010 if this still works. Counting 2010, its at least 3 versions this has existed.

[ws]

Pressing the Alt key is interesting...

a new set of shortcuts...

Alt + 1 opens, Alt + 2 saves, Alt + 3 Undo...

presumably the latter would change if the quicklaunch toolbar was rearranged?

Could be useful I suppose, although I'm not sure why you would want to go Alt + M to get to modify and then AL say, for Align... when you could just key in AL anyway?

Described here:
http://revitclinic.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/04/new-way-to-access-tools.html

[patricks]

I would also like to report that an embedded curtain wall at the corner of a wall STILL DOES NOT WORK!!!!!!!!! There is still a piece of the main wall left at the corner. This issue has been present since the first time I tried this probably 4 years ago, version 7 I'm guessing.

[ws]

just a note to any cadclips.com subscribers...

I see that DG has already posted the first videos on 2010 interface and mass modelling tools


RAC 2010 tutorial documentation and data files are again to download and install via the link given in Help->tutorials

...and the Families Guide from Help->Families Guide... although it doesn't seem to be available at the link given just yet.

[Rick Moore]

Take a look at the new export to CAD formats dialog box. It's a study in how not to design a dialog box.
There is no horizontal scroll in the name list. You can't use shift-pick to select multiple names at once. You have to double-click the name for it to show in the preview, even though it is underlined and in blue so it looks like a single click. It is not resizable. It's as if there is someone in New Hampshire that has the code bits for dialog re-sizing but he keeps them to himself most of the time.

[iankids]

Pressing the Alt key is interesting...

a new set of shortcuts...

Alt + 1 opens, Alt + 2 saves, Alt + 3 Undo...

presumably the latter would change if the quicklaunch toolbar was rearranged?

Could be useful I suppose, although I'm not sure why you would want to go Alt + M to get to modify and then AL say, for Align... when you could just key in AL anyway?

Described here:
http://revitclinic.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/04/new-way-to-access-tools.html

An interesting, cute, but mostly unless feature for me. The direct shortcut commands are, I think, a far more straight forward way of getting to a tool.

CadClips videos had a few bits of info which which I hadn't previously discovered, such as the replicate tool to copy a view so that one could have a zoom extents view in one window and a view which was zoomed up to a small part of the model in another. Nice. I will probably use this quite a bit.


Cheers,

Ian

[jeffh]

...and the Families Guide from Help->Families Guide... although it doesn't seem to be available at the link given just yet.


Families Guide is still in the process of being updated for the UI changes.

[ws]

thanks Jeff.

Here's a real problem though.

I have a new Core i7 quad core/ 8 thread cpu in my PC and so I enabled the change to the revit.ini file suggested in the model_performance_technical_note.pdf for multi-core processor machines that have more than 2 cores.
[PerformanceOptimizations]
ParallelWallJoins=ON

The technical note suggests that it will improve wall cleanup speed by 27%.

but Revit gave the 'An unrecoverable error has occurred.... ' message immediately on opening any project (just as the model appeared in View).

Remove the line in the revit.ini file and project opens OK.

Put the line back in the revit.ini file and projects crash on opening again.

Anyone else tried this yet?

I've filed an error report.

/Later... it seems to be the line itself that is causing the problem, unless I'm doing something wrong...
Even setting ParallelWallJoins=OFF still crashes projects,
only by removing this entry do the projects open OK.

Tried it on a different machine - dual dual Xeon PC - same thing - add the line to the revit.ini file and every project crashes on opening, remove it and all OK.

My reseller says he has tried the tweak on his dual core laptop and it seems to work OK... strange

[Henry D]

Pressing the Alt key is interesting...

a new set of shortcuts...

Alt + 1 opens, Alt + 2 saves, Alt + 3 Undo...

presumably the latter would change if the quicklaunch toolbar was rearranged?

Could be useful I suppose, although I'm not sure why you would want to go Alt + M to get to modify and then AL say, for Align... when you could just key in AL anyway?

Described here:
http://revitclinic.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/04/new-way-to-access-tools.html


Alt +(first letter of Menu) will also show all the keyboard shortcut abbreviations. i.e. Alt + H shows all Home keyboard shortcuts.

[narlee]

Anyone else notice that the colours in sections/elevations in shaded view are more like the colours you chose for materials?

My wood doors used to come out yellow in Section if a woody brown colour was selected - now they are much more like the colour chosen.

Good to hear! I can now stop explaining that to clients (after I've told them how "sophisticated" Revit is...).

[narlee]

Pressing the Alt key is interesting...

a new set of shortcuts...

Alt + 1 opens, Alt + 2 saves, Alt + 3 Undo...

presumably the latter would change if the quicklaunch toolbar was rearranged?

Could be useful I suppose, although I'm not sure why you would want to go Alt + M to get to modify and then AL say, for Align... when you could just key in AL anyway?

Described here:
http://revitclinic.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/04/new-way-to-access-tools.html

I don't suppose it's too much to ask that you can finally shortcut to the "Edit" button (my most-used option button)??

[narlee]

Take a look at the new export to CAD formats dialog box. It's a study in how not to design a dialog box.
There is no horizontal scroll in the name list. You can't use shift-pick to select multiple names at once. You have to double-click the name for it to show in the preview, even though it is underlined and in blue so it looks like a single click. It is not resizable. It's as if there is someone in New Hampshire that has the code bits for dialog re-sizing but he keeps them to himself most of the time.

Those kinds of oversights always drive me nuts, too. I'm guessing it was on a housekeeping to-do list that no one got back to...kind of like my back yard... :)

[ws]

The Home key now works in a text editing box in 2010 to take you to the start of a line.

The last character in a temporary dimension often seems to have the end of the character (the right-most end if horizontal) missing - as though it is being covered up by a bounding box perhaps?

[still.james]

The Home key now works in a text editing box in 2010 to take you to the start of a line.

just this is worth using 2010 :lol:

[ws]

First fatal error - drawing walls in a site plan.

When I reloaded the recovery file I noticed that the quick access toolbar had reset itself to the default position and just the standard icons.

Might be normal behaviour for a recovery file but I think I'll avoid any customisation of the UI just for the present ;) :roll:

Anyway, the recovered file seemed fine and I can carry on exactly from where I left off.

[iankids]

First fatal error - drawing walls in a site plan.

When I reloaded the recovery file I noticed that the quick access toolbar had reset itself to the default position and just the standard icons.

Might be normal behaviour for a recovery file but I think I'll avoid any customisation of the UI just for the present ;) :roll:

Anyway, the recovered file seemed fine and I can carry on exactly from where I left off.

Whilst I have not had any fatal errors to date, 2010 has a few niggling problems (start up error message & a tendency to want to reinstall itself when I try to view families as thumbnails), that I have decided to put it away for a while until it is sorted. Last year I lost a lot of time with the first release of 2009 which only got substantially better with the release of WU1.

I suspect that 2010 is going the same way, so for now, 2010 is sitting unused for any paying jobs.

Cheers,

Ian

[Lashers]

I just wish I could get it started!! Has anyone had issues with it getting stuck at the very start of the process? For some reason the Activation programme is getting shut down every time (after lots of system security changes, ongoing help form Autodesk and tears) I still can't get to the bottom of the problem!
:?

[ws]

I had that last year with 2009, but (touch wood) this year went smoothly - maybe because I was installing 2010 on an almost new machine...

Another thought is that as I had been having hair-tearing-out problems with said new machine (faulty ram module we now think) I used the garish-but-actually-very-useful TUT utility to identify and shut down/prevent loading at startup, lots of services that do nothing useful and may interfere with other software.
http://www.answersthatwork.com/TUT_pages/TUT_information.htm
TUT will allow you to re-enable a service if you overdo it.
It does much the same as MSCONFIG but with more help and guidance.
The demo version will run 10 times and although you don't get all the guidance, known bad ones are shown in red and you can Google most services to find out what they actually do.
Might be worth a look.

[aaronrumple]

Loaded up 2010 this morning. The licence manager crashed as Revit was loading. Manager crashed. Revit then just sat there. Had to kill the process. Ran fine on Friday - no system changes over the weekend. Re-boot and same issue. In process of re-install to see what happens.

[dgillespie]

Love the previews and hierarchy added to the Add Component ribbon and pulldown, but they've adjusted the viewpoint of the family preview. I think the viewpoint now consistently uses the top left looking to the bottom right (in plan view), instead of the default {3d} view.

Could be a big issue when we've created the families based on Front/Back/Left/Right views and expect it to show the correct face for the preview. This affects factory created families as well.

[Lashers]

Loaded up 2010 this morning. The licence manager crashed as Revit was loading. Manager crashed. Revit then just sat there. Had to kill the process. Ran fine on Friday - no system changes over the weekend. Re-boot and same issue. In process of re-install to see what happens.
Thats exactly what is happening to me! Apart from the fact that you seem to have at least been able to get in there and activate . . .

[ws]

Another little thing I guessed might be fixed, and is.

You can enable 'show windows contents while dragging' again in Windows.

Previously dragging a Properties box across screen would create lots of black lines following the path of the dragged window unless you disabled that setting in Windows desktop.

It all helps ;)

[patricks]

Yup, First Crash here did that to me too. :(

In one day of using it I have noticed enough things wrong with this release to wait until WU1, anyone know when that is coming...?? :)

I used to get excited about the new releases, but they have been a let down ever year since Revit 8.
I will wait for the first or second WU before I will roll it out to my firms people (AGAIN).

Why doesn't Autodesk just wait until it's REALLY READY to be rolled out?
Oh yeah, we are the guinea pigs, almost forgot.

If they didn't make that mid-April release date that everyone expects, we'd all probably be screaming for it anyway. :p

I usually always hit the ground running with a new release at least on a small project. But this time I may actually have to wait for WU1 myself. I heard in some other post that it might be sometime next month, mid-May. We'll just keep chugging along on 2009 for the time being.

[Overconstrained]

Has anyone else downloaded the tutorial (metric) help file? All I get is the attached box.
Any ideas? :(

[Alex Page]

Publish dwf is now different than previously - Publish to Buzzsaw is the only option!!!

The old Publish command is now under "export"...go figure

In 2009, using our HP 1050c plotter we would have to select the file extension of .dwf first (from the default of .dwfx) before we selected the page setup otherwise it would screw up the page size (for some reason) - Now in 2010 they have changed the dialog boxes so you cant do this - now we cant print to dwf so thats it...back to 2009 for our whole firm

[jeffh]

Has anyone else downloaded the tutorial (metric) help file? All I get is the attached box.
Any ideas? :(

Once you download the CHM file form the Autodesk website you need to make sure you are out of the help files and have set the flag so the existing ones are NOT read only. Then the newly downloaded CHM file can replace the existing ones.

[Overconstrained]

Once you download the CHM file form the Autodesk website you need to make sure you are out of the help files and have set the flag so the existing ones are NOT read only. Then the newly downloaded CHM file can replace the existing ones.

Thanks for the response Jeff, but that seems to make no difference unfortunately.

[ws]

Strange.. I downloaded them last week.

The direct URL is:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=13080067&linkID=9243097

[jeffh]

Thanks for the response Jeff, but that seems to make no difference unfortunately.

I would try exiting totally out of Revit and then delete the files (located here, C:\Program Files\Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010\Program)

TutorialsArchitectureImpENU.chm
TutorialsArchitectureMetENU.chm

Then place the CHM files you downloaded into this location and restart Revit. If that does not work there could be somethign else that is broken in the Help system that may require a re-install.

[Overconstrained]

I would try exiting totally out of Revit and then delete the files (located here, C:\Program Files\Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010\Program)

TutorialsArchitectureImpENU.chm
TutorialsArchitectureMetENU.chm

Then place the CHM files you downloaded into this location and restart Revit. If that does not work there could be somethign else that is broken in the Help system that may require a re-install.

Thanks Jeff, I had done all of those things already, so I had a re-install next on my list. I can't think what I did wrong in the first place though! Nevermind. :)

Thanks for your help though.

[ws]

Just a thought - it might be worth checking Internet Explorer and any plug-ins.

Might have changed - Jeff might know - but I was told by a Revit trainer once that Revit and other Windows applications rely on IE to display the .chm (compiled html apparently) Help files and some /too many plug-ins could lead to instability in Revit.

I always keep as 'clean' a machine as possible for Revit.

[Overconstrained]

Just a thought - it might be worth checking Internet Explorer and any plug-ins.

Might have changed - Jeff might know - but I was told by a Revit trainer once that Revit and other Windows applications rely on IE to display the .chm (compiled html apparently) Help files and some /too many plug-ins could lead to instability in Revit.

I always keep as 'clean' a machine as possible for Revit.

Thanks William, it kind of feels to me that it might be an internet explorer thing too. I have recently upgraded to IE8. Then again, the normal RA help file is fine. I'll do a bit more fiddling and see if I can sort it out.

[jeffh]

Just a thought - it might be worth checking Internet Explorer and any plug-ins.

Might have changed - Jeff might know - but I was told by a Revit trainer once that Revit and other Windows applications rely on IE to display the .chm (compiled html apparently) Help files and some /too many plug-ins could lead to instability in Revit.

I always keep as 'clean' a machine as possible for Revit.

The CHM file is dependant on IE in order to display. I am not aware of any IE 8 incompatibilities. I don't have it installed so I never tested that configuration. let me install IE8 to a test machine and see if I run into any problems.

weird that the Help file would work while the Tutorials don't???? They are built the same exact way.

[Overconstrained]

Well, I bit the bullet and did a reinstall then extracted the tutorial zip file to the correct directory (with RA2010 closed) after checking that all existing .chm files were not read only......and.....no difference.

I even rolled back to IE7 before doing all this.

It now seems to me that there is a problem with the metric tutorial .chm file itself, but others must have done this with no issue?

[ws]

Sorry overconstrained... you seem to be right.

I've just copied the downloaded file to the directory and overwritten the small default file - it took two attempts for some reason.

Now I have the headings in the tutorials left window pane but no tutorials.

It just says The address is not valid in the right hand pane.

Seems like it might be a general problem?

I've checked the location and the downloaded file has definitely replaced the original.

It may be a coincidence but Revit 2009 started acting very strangely after trying to get this working in 2010 (!) and crashed within minutes.

Weird.

[Overconstrained]

Thanks for that William......at least it's good to know I'm not going nuts!!

That's the exact thing I get (ie index only, with error message in right-hand pane)

I'll lodge a support request for this I think.

EDIT: Okay, I've managed to fix it.....but it's a strange one. I opened the chm file directly in the directory and got the same error. However I then opened the chm directly in the downloaded zip file and it was fine. I had been extracting the zip file to the directory on previous attempts, but this time I just cut and pasted from the zip file to the directory and it worked. It's clearly not liking something in the extraction process.

[ejc]

It would be nice to see export support for acad2000 go away! It would make my "freaking upgrade already" titrates more legitimate!

Export dwg
With exception of the double click to view, i like the new layout!

ejc

[tomnewsom]

No! Export2000 is vital for us as we have a (admittedly rarely used) legacy application that only goes that high in terms of acad support.

[BomberAIA]

After using 2010 for awhile, I think the ribbon is harder and slower to use. Certain commands in 2009 were always on the top and you could access them. Now you have to take an extra step. Why would AutoDesk screw with something that worked well? Also they changed the icons and it looks more "cartoonish."

[BomberAIA]

http://www.nichitecture.com/downloads/Where%20is%20my%20command%20in%20Revit%20Architecture%202010.html

Check this out. This should help with 2010.

[ws]

EDIT: Okay, I've managed to fix it.....but it's a strange one. I opened the chm file directly in the directory and got the same error. However I then opened the chm directly in the downloaded zip file and it was fine. I had been extracting the zip file to the directory on previous attempts, but this time I just cut and pasted from the zip file to the directory and it worked. It's clearly not liking something in the extraction process.

Thanks - hmm, I can open all the .chm files in the Revit program folder except the tutorials one - it says 'not recognised' and so it does seem to be something to do with the extraction of the compressed file...

Ah - it's a security thing.
Right click on the file when unzipped and choose Properties.
At the bottom next to 'Security:' it says
'This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer'
Click the 'Unblock' button...

Tada... it works :)

Same thing with the pdf version which comes with it.

Maybe a Vista thing?

/just checked the tutorial files and all the downloaded files are tagged 'blocked' and presumably need unblocking before use

[Gadget Man]

http://www.nichitecture.com/downloads/Where%20is%20my%20command%20in%20Revit%20Architecture%202010.html

Check this out. This should help with 2010.

Very neat little presentation...

[Overconstrained]

Thanks - hmm, I can open all the .chm files in the Revit program folder except the tutorials one - it says 'not recognised' and so it does seem to be something to do with the extraction of the compressed file...

Ah - it's a security thing.
Right click on the file when unzipped and choose Properties.
At the bottom next to 'Security:' it says
'This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer'
Click the 'Unblock' button...

Tada... it works :)

Same thing with the pdf version which comes with it.

Maybe a Vista thing?

/just checked the tutorial files and all the downloaded files are tagged 'blocked' and presumably need unblocking before use

You're exactly right William.....don't know how I missed that originally! It has the same thing on XP.

I think Autodesk need a little note in their tutorial installation instructions on that one. Very easy to miss.

I suspect this security block happens when you download the zip file to a server, then extract it to a local machine.

[ws]

I suspect this security block happens when you download the zip file to a server, then extract it to a local machine.

Would that life was so logical ;)

There is just me here with a few machines on a network but no server as such, and the security block appears on the files on the download machine as well as the ones I've copied it across to.