Copy text from any dialog in Windows (including Revit!)

Luke Johnson
Have you ever wanted to copy the text from a Windows Dialog, for use in training, blogging or other support related tasks? Then you should check out the free SysExporter. It is available in installable or ZIP standalone versions, and there is also a 64-bit version.

This program allows you to browse the text of dialog boxes from a vast range of windows. And as you can see in the image above, you can even extract information from Revit dialog boxes. I am sure that function could prove very useful for a lot of you.

For example, I quickly grabbed this list of worksets from SysExporter. I copied selected items using ‘Tab delimited’ format. Pasted to Excel and then copied into this window:
String Value
(Not Editable) CONSTRUCTION DETAIL ACAD LINKS 12893
(Not Editable) EGRESS PATHS 10583
(Not Editable) FHR hose lengths etc 10807
(Not Editable) GRIDS AND SETOUT 8797
(Not Editable) HIDE Admin RVT link 10573
(Not Editable) HIDE Entourage People 19332
(Not Editable) HIDE Ext Main Ceiling Level 14103
(Not Editable) HIDE Furniture PRESENTATION 14727
(Not Editable) HIDE Internal Detail Elements Battens etc 17850
(Not Editable) HIDE K BLOCK LEVEL 9062
(Not Editable) HIDE Lower Basement Level 9995
(Not Editable) HIDE Main Audience Level 12393
(Not Editable) HIDE Main Entrance Level 11410
(Not Editable) HIDE Mechanical Kitchen Plans 17273
(Not Editable) HIDE Old Stairs for Removable Seating 11357
(Not Editable) HIDE Planting and Trees 11854
(Not Editable) LIGHTING 1 Workset 17893
(Not Editable) MASSES hidden by default 9993
(Not Editable) REMOVABLE SEATING 9791
(Not Editable) REMOVABLE SEATING 3D RVT LINK 17883
(Not Editable) Room separation lines 5829
(Not Editable) Shared Levels and Grids 103
(Not Editable) Working HIDDEN 8934
(Not Editable) Workset1 0

The Parametric Life (repost)

Luke Johnson

Interesting post over at BIM + Integrated Design. It includes 14 Rules for Living In, Out and Around BIM.

My blog has dealt with ‘What Revit Wants’ in more than a few posts over the last few years. So I found it interesting that one of these 14 points (in particular) gives Revit a personality:
Ask yourself: If I was the model what else would I do? What else can I provide that others may need? Your original intention for your model may have been to use the model for one thing – but what if you also used it for a rendering? For an animation? As a database to run energy applications?….
and so on.

The whole post is quite thought provoking – I think I may need to have a glass of wine and ponder it further…

How to Print a large set of drawings to individual PDFs with automatic naming

Luke Johnson

Sometimes you will want to produce a large set of PDFs where each drawing sheet is in its own PDF file. You also want the PDFs to be automatically named and created. There are a number of ways to accomplish this – here is the simple way that I use.

  1. Download and install PDFCreator ( if you don’t have it already)

  2. Download the following ini file: pdfcreator settings

  3. Open the PDFCreator application

  4. Go to Printer – Options, and then ‘load’ the settings from the ini file you downloaded (use the little folder at the top of the window to load settings), then hit ‘Save’ at the bottom of the window.

  5. Now, when you print from Revit, be sure to choose the options to ‘Create separate files…’
  6. When you click ‘Print’ in Revit, each sheet will be sent individually to PDFCreator. PDFCreator will then use the View or Sheet name (as per the REDMON_DOCNAME_FILE setting) to Autosave the PDFs to a specified folder – the above ini file uses C:TEMP_PLOT by default.

You can tweak these settings to your own individual taste – you may want to change the Autosave folder, for example.
Revit wants you to work efficiently, and it wants you to maximise the value of the data inherent to the BIM model. In this case, we leverage the View/Sheet name to automatically name the PDF files.
But what if you want to modify the filenames – perhaps adding a prefix or suffix to all PDF filenames? Well, you will just have to subscribe and wait for the next post…

Go to Part 2

Accessing Project Parameters in Multiple Schedules (Jay Polding)

Luke Johnson

This is one of the most exciting blog posts I have read for some time:
http://revit.blogspot.com/2010/03/accessing-project-parameters-in.html from Jay Polding at revit in plain english.

Essentially, in any schedule you can actually add Project Information parameters. This includes Sheet Schedules, Component Schedules and Material Takeoffs, but not Note Blocks. All you need to do is tick the ‘Include Elements in Linked Files’ box to expose the ‘Project Information’ option in the dropdown list. And when you add custom Project Information parameters, make sure you tick ‘Instance’ in the Parameter Properties box (otherwise you won’t see Project Information as a possible category for your new parameter).

My brain is starting to tick over as to possible uses of this in filtering and calculation… You could use it to set a provisional unit cost for flooring, use the parameter in a number of different cost schedules, and then 6 months down the track if the cost changes – you only have to change it once, in Project Information!

You could filter all of your schedules with a Yes/No Project Information parameter, lets say for ‘optional building elements’, and when the Client decides they don’t want them – just untick the box in Project Information and all the schedules hide all of these optional elements. That is cool!

How to add a label to a Component Family (automatic tag)

Luke Johnson

Sometimes you will want a component family to ‘always’ show a certain label. In other words, you do not want to have to manually ‘tag’ the family after placing it in project. How can we do this?Basically, while in the component family (for example, a Plumbing family), load the following Annotation family:
Generic Label.rfa Now, place an instance of the annotation family. You can drag the type directly from the Project Browser and drop it into the Ref Level view.You should link the parameter in this annotation family to a parameter from the Plumbing host family (you should know how to do this by now!) When you load this Plumbing component into the project, it now comes with an ‘automatic tag’, of sorts. However, there are some things to keep in mind – the main one being that this annotation will show in any view where the host family is included in the view range – it will not be masked by geometry.So, use this method with care. I have found it useful for things like a Hot Water System family, where you always want to show ‘HW’ in plan views. And I have handled the visibility issue with some trickly view filters.

How to Change your Software Delivery Method (to get boxed software)

Luke Johnson

As you know, Autodesk is now making software available as a ‘Download’ by default for Subscription customers – you won’t automatically receive a boxed version. However, if you still wish to receive a boxed version, you can.

I received an email from a reseller that outlined how to change your Autodesk subscription delivery preference. These steps are shown below: To change the delivery method:

1) Follow this link to log into the Autodesk Subscription site.

2) Login using your userID and password. (If you don’t have a UserID and Password refer to the Q&A below.)

3) Select My Profile.

4) Select your delivery preference.

5) Scroll to the bottom of the page and check the delivery address is correct. If not select Edit Location.


Thanks to ADA CADPartners Pty Ltd for this guide.

Add a URL link to your Titleblock – easy way to advertise!

Luke Johnson

No doubt you issue many PDF files to consultants, Clients, Builders and the like. Why not add a URL link to your titleblock, so that anyone receiving your PDF files can jump directly to your webpage?

 

Its as simple as adding a parameter of type:URL into your titleblock.

 

To make it even easier for you, I have created a Generic Annotation family with a URL parameter inside it. Simply load this family into your titleblock, then link the parameter from it to a parameter in your titleblock (see image).
Here is the download link:

 

Now, when anyone opens this PDF, they can jump directly to your webpage.
The URLs worked fine for me using CutePDF and Adobe Reader, but Foxit Reader seemed to have an issue parsing the link correctly.