one handed Revit

[clog boy]

My supervisor suffered a minor stroke and as a result he's mostly paralyzed on his right side. He can't use his right hand anymore, walking is a challenge, and he has his car adapted. After six months of rehabilitating he's only now coming back to the office for two mornings a week.

Are there any known tricks that work well to use Revit with one hand? Maybe sticky keys in Windows? I gave it a try, but when I have ctrl sticky (for multi select) and I try to tab through elements, it switches views. Obviously there needs to be something better for this.
Are there any plugins available to help with multi select? For instance, an add-in that adds clicked elements to a selection (and remove them if clicked again) until you press enter, either with or without category filter (same as previously selected element or an arbitrary category)?

What are other obvious pitfalls for lefthanded / one handed Revit users, and simple tricks to cope with it? He's always been a bit of a luddite (frustrated every time Windows or his Samsung phone needed a software update), but it's admirable how well his tenacity helped him in this new situation, and how much patience he managed to muster. If we offer him a solution in technology (for example a keyboard with action keys), it has to be something that works easy and robust.

Thanks in advance. Any tips or similar experiences would be extremely welcome to help my supervisor adjust to his new situation.

[USMCBody]

Yea this is a tough one.... I don't think there is a perfect solution, but Just off the top of my head and at least one piece of the puzzle...

I've heard of people reworking short cut's so they can just keep one hand on a keyboard in one spot. like A is copy, AA is line, AAA is..., AS is..., and such and so forth. The person that did this was doing it in AutoCAD and they were still using a mouse, but their intent was to draft faster... You can use that concept of saving time to help out some and rework some shortcuts in Revit. Just one piece of the puzzle, but something for you. B-)

[CAtDiva]

Can he set/use a left-handed mouse & skip trying to do keyboard shortcuts?

I know this is not pertinent to the technical side of your question, but he might find this book helpful for repairing/recovering from the neuro-damage from the stroke: https://feedabrain.com/.

[Ed Jobe]

If you can't get a left handed mouse, most of them let you flip the left and right button's function.

Recommended cad mouse with extra buttons for assigning functions.
Better yet, get a SpaceMouse. Supports 6 axis 3D viewing and multiple configurable buttons. I have one, Very efficient navigation. I operate mine with my left and and a regular mouse in my right. Note that you still may want a left handed mouse for moving the cursor. The SpaceMouse zooms/pans/rotates the view. He could have both on the left side. You don't move the SpaceMouse like you do a regular mouse. You rotate and twist the knob. Similar to a trackball. That also is another option over a mouse. You can get them with a lot of buttons too.

[clog boy]

Thanks for the replies all. He does use a left handed trackball. I'm also looking at a separate numpad with extra programmable action keys for the most common commands. Ultimately it's up to him and what he wants, but if I educate myself on any good and practical solution then I can hopefully inform him better.

If you can't get a left handed mouse, most of them let you flip the left and right button's function.

Recommended cad mouse with extra buttons for assigning functions.
Better yet, get a SpaceMouse. Supports 6 axis 3D viewing and multiple configurable buttons. I have one, Very efficient navigation. I operate mine with my left and and a regular mouse in my right. Note that you still may want a left handed mouse for moving the cursor. The SpaceMouse zooms/pans/rotates the view. He could have both on the left side. You don't move the SpaceMouse like you do a regular mouse. You rotate and twist the knob. Similar to a trackball. That also is another option over a mouse. You can get them with a lot of buttons too.

I was thinking space mouse too. Does a spacemouse work well in native Revit? Or is it something that requires a bit of tweaking? My supervisor claims that rotating, zooming etc is not an issue, he simply drags the viewcube to rotate.

[Ed Jobe]

When I checked last year, they didn't support Revit, but now they do. The nice thing about using a Space mouse vs the view cube is its much quicker as you can do several actions at once. Like zooming while rotating the view, i.e 3 axes at once. Once you use a SpaceMouse, you'll never go back to the view cube with a regular mouse.

[james.rison]

My supervisor suffered a minor stroke and as a result he's mostly paralyzed on his right side. He can't use his right hand anymore, walking is a challenge, and he has his car adapted. After six months of rehabilitating he's only now coming back to the office for two mornings a week.

Are there any known tricks that work well to use Revit with one hand? Maybe sticky keys in Windows? I gave it a try, but when I have ctrl sticky (for multi select) and I try to tab through elements, it switches views. Obviously there needs to be something better for this.
Are there any plugins available to help with multi select? For instance, an add-in that adds clicked elements to a selection (and remove them if clicked again) until you press enter, either with or without category filter (same as previously selected element or an arbitrary category)?

What are other obvious pitfalls for lefthanded / one handed Revit users, and simple tricks to cope with it? He's always been a bit of a luddite (frustrated every time Windows or his Samsung phone needed a software update), but it's admirable how well his tenacity helped him in this new situation, and how much patience he managed to muster. If we offer him a solution in technology (for example a keyboard with action keys), it has to be something that works easy and robust.

Thanks in advance. Any tips or similar experiences would be extremely welcome to help my supervisor adjust to his new situation.

Use a gaming device like the Razor Tartarus. Each button can be programmed to whatever command you want. I use one daily.

[Duncan Lithgow]

A rollermouse on/below his keyboard may mean less movement to get from the 'mouse' to the keyboard. But if as you say he's a bit of a luddite he may not really need/want to use keyboard shortcuts. I don't find them nearly as important in Revit as they were in AutoCAD (mostly because they're less useful)