The Building Coder

WorksharingUtils

Rudolf 'Revitalizer' Honke frequently requested better documentation of the Revit API `*Utils` classes, e.g., when he pointed out the handy utility classes back in 2013. This is still an interesting and somewhat poorly documented area in the Revit API, as we can see from the discussion below – WorksharingUtils and the WorksharingTooltipInfo class – Ten interesting C# features – A new acronym – TL;DR... Read more →

Extensible Storage in a Worksharing Environment

Here is a thread from the Revit API discussion forum on working with extensible storage in a worksharing environment between Scott Wilson, Cshha, Erik Eriksson and Arnošt Löbel, Sr. Principal Engineer of the Autodesk Revit R&D team, that I find valuable and therefore edited and reproduced here, for preservation and clarity. By the way, if this topic is of interest and importance to you and your add-ins, you will probably also be interested in Scott Conover's Autodesk University 2013 class... Read more →

Understanding the Use of the UniqueId

Here is a thread from the Revit API discussion forum on understanding the use of the UniqueId between Erik Eriksson and Arnošt Löbel, Sr. Principal Engineer of the Autodesk Revit R&D team, that I find very valuable and therefore edited, for preservation and clarity: Question: In the early days, I thought that ElementId was a stable way of finding elements in a document, then I learned that UniqueId was the proper way. But I haven't been able to find enough... Read more →

Revit 2015 R2 and the Read-Write Workset API

Finally, the Revit API provides a complete Workset API including creation and modification capabilities. The one snag is that it is currently limited to the subscription update release Revit 2015 R2. This issue was discussed a while back on the Revit API discussion forum, in the threads on R2 versus UR4 and worksets; I searched and re-searched for them frequently enough now to finally decide to promote the gist to a main blog post topic. Read-Write Workset API The Workset... Read more →

Cloud Accelerator, VDC and Transaction Groups

Wow, hark these cool topics for today: Autodesk Cloud Accelerator workshop invitation BIM becomes VDC Using Transaction Groups to Relinquish Elements Without Saving or Syncing Autodesk Cloud Accelerator Workshop Invitation Autodesk just announced the 2015 Autodesk Cloud Accelerator, a two-week workshop in March 2015 in our San Francisco office for up to 14 creative software developers. For two weeks, March 9 to March 20, 2015, participants will work intensively on their chosen project with the help, support, and training of... Read more →

Worksharing and Duplicating Element Geometry

I had two more interesting email conversations on Revit API questions, on add-ins in a worksharing environment and duplicating element geometry for detailing and fabrication. Actually, both of these topics have been discussed in the past, so a lot of the work I did was to dig out the existing material again to make these developer partners happy. Today I therefore have an opportunity to talk about the Revit API and nothing but the Revit API again for a change,... Read more →

Saving a New Central File to Revit Server

One topic brought up at Scott Conover's worksharing roundtable was the question of how to save a new Revit central file to a Revit Server. Participants even questioned whether this is possible at all with the current API. Well, it is, and we look at the exact steps to achieve that below as well as: DevDay in Farnborough, cabs and flights Saving a new central file to Revit Server Consistent naming of transactions and transaction groups Changing the category of... Read more →

Change Element Workset

We discussed reading the workset of an element, either using the built-in parameter ELEM_PARTITION_PARAM or, more easily, the dedicated document GetWorksetId method. This is actually another example of the possibility to choose your data access method by using either a dedicated property or a parameter, as we recently explored to achieve changing the viewport type. Although the Revit API provides a dedicated property to read an element workset, it does not do so for changing it, which begs the question:... Read more →

Detach Workset and TaskDialog Command Link Order

Here is a neat and simple solution using the DialogBoxShowing event to detach and discard worksets by Erik Eriksson of White Arkitketer AB, who already provided a useful workaround to synchronize with central using SendKeys in combination with the Idling and DocumentSynchronizedWithCentral events. Here is the issue: Question: We have a need to detach project files without worksets. For instance, it would be great to just have an option to detach and discard worksets. Why do we need this? This... Read more →

Read-only Workset API

Another one of the new Revit 2012 API features that we still never had a detailed look at is the worksharing API, a comprehensive read-only API to worksharing features, access the list of worksets, find out what elements are in a workset, who borrowed what, whether an element went out of date with central, etc. Here is a quick Q & A on some basic aspects of that API: Question: I know that the built-in parameter ELEM_PARTITION_PARAM identifies the workset... Read more →