In this Click Saver, I want to talk about how to arrange the Project Browser to your liking compared to the out-of-the-box template. Out of the box, the Project Browser is setup to do alphabetic order and then break-down the views into categories. For some people, that might work great, but others would like to have better control over the category naming structure and where certain views go. I will also show how this same control can be done in the Sheet category instead of the default “all” that it might be set at now.
To get started, we need to first build some Project Parameters. These will help in determining the naming structure and what must be filled out to get the view or sheet in the right location. Since most people use Windows Explorer to manage their projects and folder structure, I’m going to call my Project Parameter “Main Folder.” Later, I will also show adding a Project Parameter, called Sub-folder, to break it down further for the categories.
1) Go to the Manage tab and pick on Project Parameters. This will bring you up the Project Parameter dialog box.
2) Select Add and name your new parameter “Main Folder”, keep it Instance based since each View and Sheet might be different.
3) Leave Discipline as “Common”, set Type of Parameter to “Text”, and set Group Parameter Under as “Identity Data”.
4) Under the right-hand side under the Categories list choose “Sheets” and “Views”.
5) Pick OK twice to save your changes.
Now we have a custom Project Parameter that is attached to all of your existing Views and Sheets in your project. To check it, select a view or sheet in the project browser and look at the Properties. You might need to use the slider bar to find the category of “Identity Data,” but you should now see the field for “Main Folder”. Filling this out now will not have any effect on the Project Browser until we do the next steps.
6) Go to the View tab. Under the drop-down list for User Interface, you will find the Browser Organization tool.
7) In the Browser Organization dialog box, notice the two tabs: Views or Sheets.
8) Starting with the Views tab, pick on the “New” button.
9) Name it “Folders” and pick Ok.
10) On “Group By” drop-down list choose “Main Folder” and select OK.
11) For “Sort By” choose “Associated Level”, this will help organize the plans better.
12) Check mark “Folders” to make yours current and pick “Apply”. Don’t get out of the dialog box just yet because we are going to do the same thing for Sheets.
13) Now change to the Sheets tab at the top.
14) Pick the New button and name it “Folders” and pick Ok.
15) On “Group By” drop-down list choose Folders and select OK.
16) Check mark “Folders” to make yours current and pick Apply.
17) Now pick Ok to save your changes and see your new Project Browser category structure.
You should now see “???”; because, Revit does not know where to place the Views or Sheets.
Select one of your Views and under the category of Identity Data, type in a new folder name. With that done you will see a new category that is using the same name that you just typed in. You can use the CTRL and SHIFT key to select more than one view at the same time to speed up this process.
You could even take this a step further and create an additional Project Parameter and name it “Sub-folder” using all of the same data as above. With this idea you could lump all of the Floor Plans under one Category, then select individual views to break them down further into sub-categories, for example: Overall, Furniture, Life Safety, Working, etc.
You would just need to enhance the Browser Organization dialog box to take advantage of the new “Sub-folder” Project Parameter by picking on “edit” for “Folders” then use the “Then By” to select “Sub-folder”.
Obviously the naming convection for the Project Parameters and how one might want to break down the Project Browser using Browser Organization dialog box is all up to you. This really is just scratching the surface of what can be done but I wanted to show how everyone can add their own parameters instead of trying to use the default ones that are in the Browser Organization tool.
See you in class,
Jarod
