Adding a Pop Up Window to a Formula

[SRobbins]

We have a family that errors when certain values are hit. Its realated to Automatic Sketch Dimension reassociating with work planes when two workplans over lap... Anyway, the QA team knows about this.

The problem I have is that I have an IF statement to trigger an generic error message when these two rare conditions are met. I would rather a pop up window explaining what thy can not do. "Position of legs from ends can not equal half total length" and an OK button.

Is there a "say" style command for revit formulas?

[Alfredo_Medina]

No, that kind of pop up window is not available in the family editor. However, you can prevent those two values to coexist but using a range of valid values. If the user enters a value that is not accepted, you change it to a valid value in the family.

[SRobbins]

That is unfortunate. Would be great to explain the problem so they can pick a different number that works.

I dont want to use a range of valid values. Inevitably someone will not check to find out that the value they inputted is not being used, and design around bad numbers.

But forcing a Revit error at least makes them get up and ask. Autodesk needs to add a "say" to the IF statements so then they dont even need to get up... or better yet, make Reference planes not confuse parameter dimensions when they lay on each other parallel.

Thank you for the help.

[Alfredo_Medina]

Well, it might be a problem in the family, not necessarily something in Revit, or "Autodesk". The family maker has to find a way to prevent the family from breaking. You could make an annotation family appear on the screen when certain conditions are met, but if those values cause the family to break, the users might not have the chance to see the message before the family breaks with an error such as "constraints not satisfied" or "can't make..."

Or... use type parameters and provide types in the family, so that all the valid dimensions are already predefined. By doing this, your users won't need to be stretching instance parameters.