24x24 StackedItem, Ribbon Utils, Journal Encoding

Let's start the week with some ribbon button item and encoding topics:

• How to create 24x24 stacked ribbon items
• Update on moving a ribbon button between panels
• Revit journal file character encoding

How to Create 24x24 Stacked Ribbon Items

Jameson jnyp Nyp raised and solved this issue in the Revit API discussion forum thread on 24x24 StackedItems:

Question: This may be an easy one, but so far I am struggling to find anything specific about it. How do you make a StackedItem where the icons are 24x24 when there are only 2 in the stack? It seems like it should be possible as it is used multiple times in the modify tab (see example below).

Icon sizes

I have been able to set the ShowText property to false to get the 3 stacked icons, but when I use the same methodology with the 2 icon stack it remains 16x16 regardless of the icon resolution. I have tried to obtain and change the button's height and width, minWidth and minHeight through the Autodesk.Window.RibbonItem object to no avail. Has anyone had any success in creating these icons?

Solution: I found a solution. In order to display the button at the 24x24 size the Autodesk.Windows.RibbonItem.Size needs to be manually set to Autodesk.Windows.RibbonItemSize.Large enum and a 24x24 icon needs to be set to the LargeImage property of the button. I have included a code example below. Forgive me for any poor coding techniques. I am only a couple months into my C# developer life.

using Autodesk.Revit.UI;
using Autodesk.Windows;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Windows.Media.Imaging;
using YourCustomUtilityLibrary;

namespace ReallyCoolAddin
{
  public class StackedButton
  {
    public IList<Autodesk.Revit.RibbonItem> Create( RibbonPanel ribbonPanel )
    {
      // Get Assembly
      Assembly assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
      string assemblyLocation = assembly.Location;

      // Get DLL Location
      string executableLocation = Path.GetDirectoryName( assemblyLocation );
      string dllLocationTest = Path.Combine( executableLocation, "TestDLLName.dll" );

      // Set Image
      BitmapSource pb1Image = UTILImage.GetEmbeddedImage( assembly, "Resources.16x16_Button1.ico" );
      BitmapSource pb2Image = UTILImage.GetEmbeddedImage( assembly, "Resources.16x16_Button2.ico" );
      BitmapSource pb1LargeImage = UTILImage.GetEmbeddedImage( assembly, "Resources.24x24_Button1.ico" );
      BitmapSource pb2LargeImage = UTILImage.GetEmbeddedImage( assembly, "Resources.24x24_Button2.ico" );

      // Set Button Name
      string buttonName1 = "ButtonTest1";
      string buttonName2 = "ButtonTest2";

      // Create push buttons
      PushButtonData buttondata1 = new PushButtonData( buttonName1, buttonTextTest, dllLocationTest, "Command1" );
      buttondata1.Image = pb1Image;
      buttondata1.LargeImage = pb1LargeImage;

      PushButtonData buttondata2 = new PushButtonData( buttonName2, buttonTextTest, dllLocationTest, "Command2" );
      buttondata2.Image = pb2Image;
      buttondata2.LargeImage = pb2LargeImage;

      // Create StackedItem
      IList<Autodesk.Revit.RibbonItem> ribbonItem = ribbonPanel.AddStackedItems( buttondata1, buttondata2 );

      // Find Autodes.Windows.RibbonItems
      UTILRibbonItem utilRibbon = new UTILRibbonItem();
      var btnTest1 = utilRibbon.getButton( "Tab", "Panel", buttonName1 );
      var btnTest2 = utilRibbon.getButton( "Tab", "Panel", buttonName2 );

      // Set Size and Text Visibility
      btnTest1.Size = RibbonItemSize.Large;
      btnTest1.ShowText = false;
      btnTest2.Size = RibbonItemSize.Large;
      btnTest2.ShowText = false;

      // Return StackedItem
      return ribbonItem;
    }
  }
}

Question: Hi Jameson, in your code above, you use a UTILRibbonItema class.

What is the that?

I wasn't able to find it anywhere on the Internet.

Answer: The UTILRibbonItem class is a helper class that I use to go find RibbonItems through the Autodesk.Windows (AW) API.

It goes in to the AW and recursively searches through the tabs, panels and buttons to find the button you feed to it.

Taking all of the logic and putting it in its own class allows for easier reuse.

A larger discussion of what that class contains can be found in the other discussion thread on adding a new custom ribbon panel to a Revit built-in tab

Here is a basic implementation:

  using AW = Autodesk.Windows;

  public AW.RibbonItem GetButton( string tabName, 
    string panelName, string itemName )
  {
    AW.RibbonControl ribbon = AW.ComponentManager.Ribbon;
    foreach( AW.RibbonTab tab in ribbon.Tabs )
    {
      if( tab.Name == tabName )
      {
        foreach( AW.RibbonPanel panel in tab.Panels )
        {
          if( panel.Source.Title == panelName )
          {
            return panel.FindItem( "CustomCtrl_%CustomCtrl_%" 
              + tabName + "%" + panelName + "%" + itemName, 
              true ) as AW.RibbonItem;
          }
        }
      }
    }
    return null;
  }

Just beware that the AW API is not a documented API, so use it at your own risk as it can be changed without letting anyone know.

Many thanks to Jameson for implementing and sharing this nice clean solution, and congratulations on such prowess "only a couple months into his C# developer life"!

Update on Moving a Ribbon Button Between Panels

Jameson's links above prompted me to revisit the Revit API discussion forum thread on adding a new custom ribbon panel to a Revit built-in tab that I referred to here on the blog in 2014 in the article on moving an external command button within the ribbon.

I noticed that the thread was updated after the initial publication. Above all, the link to the sample code provided back then is no longer valid, so here is a local copy of it, RibbonMoveExample.zip.

Thanks again to Scott for sharing it back then.

Revit Journal File Character Encoding

Finally, a quick note on the Revit journal file character encoding shared by Андрей apavlovY5SDS Павлов (Andrey Pavlov) in the Revit API discussion forum thread on Revit journal file encoding:

Question: What is the Revit journal file encoding?

The default file path is C:\Users\ {Username} \AppData\Local\Autodesk\Revit\Autodesk Revit 2020\Journals.

I have trouble decoding Cyrillic characters.

Answer: Windows-1251, confidence 0.9824519, tested with errepi/ude, a C# port of the Mozilla Universal Charset Detector.

Many thanks to Andrey for raising and clarifying this issue.