Locking WorkSet with a hidden user name!

[nhoorzad980136]

Hi everyone,

This is my first time posing on AUGI so forgive me if i'm posting this in the wrong category. A few days ago I found a neat trick in locking out a WorkSet and I wanted to get some opinions and views on this. Whether this is a good or bad fine, if it’s something that's been known for a while but I just never new about it and really whether I should be using this and teaching it to others.


So we all know how to impersonate another user to relinquish a WorkSet that's checked out to their name, and if you’re not sure what I’m talking about here is a link to bring you up to speed.
http://revittotd.com/06/383

So the question that came to my mind was, what if you don't want anyone pulling this trick on you and relinquishing your WorkSets. For example if you're a CAD manager and don't want people fiddling around with a few WorkSets, but unfortunately are your Revit technicians know the username swap trick, what can you do?

In Revit, the username field accepts multiple fonts as input however it displays some as bullets, kind of like when you’re inputting your password on a web page. A good place to find these fonts is in Microsoft Word. The font 'MT Extra' for example I've tested and it shows up as bullets another one is the font ‘AIGDT’. What this means is that no one can know what Font or Letters you used to create your username besides you. But it’s very important that you remember your input or else to the best of my knowledge those WorkSets will be locked forever and you will need to roll back to an earlier version of you Revit model.


Steps:

1. First image takes you inside Revit where you would enter your username.

2. Second image is copying the username into Microsoft Word and changing it to a different font in this example the font called AIGDT. (which is just associate symbols to letters).

3. Third image is copying the username (AIGDT font) back into Revit and as you can see Revit just shows it as bullets.

4. Forth image shows how WorkSets checked out to that user will appear to others.


This is pretty much what I came up with. I am open to any comments, inputs or Revit ethics that you want to throw at me.

Cheers,

Navid.

[cadtag]

communication and collaboration generally work much better than sabotaging project data with gimmicky tricks. Personally speaking, I'd be apt to take a clue-by-four and apply it the side of the head of anyone who pulled that.