Tag Archives: Tips

What Did I Tag

For those of you who follow this blog know I often mention simple Right Click commands that I find beneficial to an everyday user.  For instance most users have loved the “What Did I Dimension” post a few years back.  This tip is along the same line except it works with Tags.  If a tag is selected, then Right Click one of the options will be “Select Host”.

RightClickTag SelectHost

I find this extremely helpful when detailing or reviewing floor plans.  For example if there is a series of wall tags and one of them appears to be incorrect, does that mean the wrong wall modeled, or did the wrong wall get tagged?  How about a detail (assuming it is utilizing tagging and not text), all of the notes are detail item tags and with a “Free End” leader who knows if it is pointing to the correct element. By Right Clicking on the tag and choosing the “Select Host” option it will change your selection from the tag to the element being tagged.  With it selected a user can change or verify any property of that object.

Hopefully this simple Right Click feature will help in your daily process.

 

Revit Railings Termination 2017

In 2017 the new feature that railings can be hosted to walls and floors is getting all the attention.  However there have been some subtle things that have been added.  One thing that myself and Tim Waldock have been requesting is to see the termination families in plan views.  This wish has been granted, or quirk has been fixed, depending on how you look at it.

The first image below shows a family in Revit 2016 R2 the second image is Revit 2017

Railing Termination 2016

Railing Termination 2017

Revit 2017 Tags

One of the minor new features for Revit 2017 was the nuance of how pinning a tag works.  In previous releases if a tag had been pinned  it kept an individual from moving the tag but it moved along with the element it tagged.  In 2017 when a tag is pinned it still keeps an individual from moving it, however it will stay in it’s given location as the element being tagged moves.  Note: The leader only moves with the tagged component if the Leader is set to Attached End and not Free End.2017 Pinned Tag Orginal Location

 

2017 Pinned Tag Not Pinned

 

2017 Pinned Tag Pinned

 

This is a very welcomed new feature, I have been an advocate of detailing using tags in lieu of text but was always frustrated that if a detail item changed the tagged would move and have to be realigned.  No more wasting time with this menial task

Revit 2017 View Range Quirk

The new features that we received as part of Revit 2017 for View Range were actually part of 2016 R2, with one exception.  In 2017 the factory gave us a 2 key shortcut (VR) to activate it.  This is, maybe I should say was, one of my favorite new little features for this release.  However I found a bug when using the shortcut instead of accessing it through the properties dialog.  If you use VR to access the dialog you Must use apply dialog for it to work clicking OK wont accept changes.  Aaron Maller and I also discovered that you can access the view range via VR even when there is a view template assigned.  Simply applying the view template to the view wont correct the problem you must make a change in the view template and it will then overwrite the settings.  These quirks forced me to no longer say this is one of my favorite small enhancements.

Revit 2017 Purge Material Assests in Familes

During my last Revit Radio session I was had made the comment that Material Assests can’t be purged out of a family.  The discussion arose as I had found a bug in Revit 2017 that if you attempt to delete all the materials out of a family then Revit was just crashing.  It didn’t do this on all families but specifically on View Title families, both OOTB and custom versions.  Aaron Maller wrote in explaining me a work around to remove the material assest.  This mornign I was gong to blog about his work around but wanted to first attempt to figure out why the family was crashing in the first place.  My first troubleshooting thought was to purge the family and to my surprise we can now Purge material assests (This is huge for us content generating geeks).  Not only that but it will allow us to purge all materials out of a family, it doesn’t leave default.

Revit 2017 Material Assest Purge

FYI purging the family of materials didn’t make it crash but deleting the material did.  I stopped looking since this is a better option anyway.