Tag: keyboard shortcuts

Mimic Old Properties Dialog

Luke Johnson

Great tip from Troy Gates over at AUGI:

Default Re: Revit 2011 Properties Box VS. Project Browser
You could mimic the previous properties box by floating it over your working area and toggling it on and off with the keyboard shortcut (PP, VP or CTRL-1) or by closing with the X and reopening with right-click -> properties.

__________________
Troy Gates
Design Technologies Manager
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SuperTip #3 – Keyboard Shortcuts

Luke Johnson
The best way to become faster at using Revit is to trigger more commands with the keyboard. This is a trick that anyone using AutoCAD learned years ago. You can just hit a few keys much faster than you can find a little button with your mouse. Plus, you don’t have to wait for the interface to catch up with (yes, I’m talking to you, Mr. Ribbon!)

Over the past few years, I have put together a pretty comprehensive and fast set of Revit keyboard shortcuts. As I am right-handed and will generally have my right hand on the mouse, these shortcuts are set up around the fact that my left hand will be sitting around ASDF on the keyboard. Most of them are based on two-character shortcuts, and they generally reflect the first letters of the command they are triggering.

Some of them are a throwback to the old AutoCAD days (you will know them when you use them 🙂

So, here is my gift to all of you:

Keep in mind that you can check the Keyboard Shorcut of a command simply by holding your mouse over the button of that command. The Tooltip will show the Keyboard Command.

If you have any other tips about Keyboard Shortcuts, please comment here.

In other news, now you can follow us on Twitter.

Disappearing 'Finish Sketch' or 'Finish Mass' Ribbon Elements

Luke Johnson

Occasionally you may find that the Finish Sketch and Cancel Sketch buttons disappear from the Ribbon.

The easiest way to get out of this situation is to map a Keyboard Shortcut for these commands. You can do this at any point (even after they have disappeared from the Ribbon). Simply open the ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’ dialog, and type ‘Finish Sketch’ in the box.

Then just map a suitable shortcut, like ‘FS’, to the command. As soon as you press OK, you can now use this shortcut to get out of the editing mode.

How to use the new Keyboard Shortcuts Dialog and Tips

Luke Johnson

UPDATE: Check out my Supertip post at https://wrw.is/2010/04/supertip-3-keyboard-shortcuts.html

The Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk Revit Architecture 2010 has generally been received quite well. I am a little annoyed that I recently spent quite some time creating some parametric truss families, and now they give us the Structural tools! In reality though, it is a welcome and helpful update.

The new Keyboard Shortcuts dialog is great – it allows for easy viewing and updating of shortcuts. However, it does not allow you to ‘sort’ the priority of shortcuts that begin with the same letter. Here are a few tips on using the new dialog:

  • To open the dialog, go to the View tab, User Interface button, Keyboard Shorcuts…
  • To import your old shorcuts, click on Import, change the ‘Files of type’ drop down list to *.txt files, browse to your ‘Program’ folder and select the ‘KeyboardShortcuts.txt’ file. You can choose to overwrite or merge your shortcuts.
  • To ensure that a given shortcut works with a single key configuration (ie. Move triggered by M-Space, remove all other shortcuts beginning with ‘M’ and reassign them.
  • TIP – You can use the ‘number’ keys and assign shortcuts to these! If you are a gamer, it will be quite natural for you to select the number keys to trigger various weapons, powers or actions. Now, you can set Move to 1, Copy to 2, Rotate to 3 and so forth. These are your powers now!
  • TIP – By clicking the ‘shortcuts’ column heading in this dialog, it will sort the commands by their related shortcuts. This is a quick and easy way to see if there are any duplicates.

Enjoy the new Keyboard Shorcuts dialog and feel free to post any tips or comments you may have.PS – Here are some relevant AUGI forum links for your perusal:Help w/ new keyboard shortcuts?Subscription Advantage Pack for Revit

Tab select for instance parameters!

Luke Johnson

So you are using the ‘grips’ to try and stretch instance parameters on a family, but it is a pain – sometimes they snap, sometimes they don’t, you can’t dial in a certain value to ‘move’ the instance parameter…and when you try and ‘align’ that instance to something, the whole family moves!!! What to do?!?

Revit wants you to ‘Tab’ select the Ref Plane inside the family. Now you can use the ‘move’ command to move that instance element accurately. The process again – you have a family with an instance parameter. Use Tab to select the Ref Plane associated with the instance parameter. Now hit ‘Move’ (or your Keyboard Shortcut :-), and you can put that ref plane exactly where you want it.

Awesome!

Got this great tip from Aaron Rumple:
http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?p=257292&mode=linear&highlight=instance+align+move#post257292