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Keynote Editor Within Project Envirionment

I waste tremendous amounts of time trying to open the file, find the note you need to add, change or fix, when it seems to be so close to right at your fingertips when you go to select the keynote.  Please build in the ability to edit keynotes in the project envirionment.

Comentarios
Anonymous

We need a fully integrated and robust keynote management interface built into Revit. Why are we having to rely on 3rd party applications, excel or a basic note editor for something that is fundamental to the process of creating a set of drawings?

 

 

Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yes, yes, yes! And while we're at it, go ahead and build the spellcheck into the Keynote Manager (as well as to schedules, PLEASE).

A proper Keynotes function would be fantastic, especially if it were able to be grouped by type, by sheet (Project parameter as well as user-defined), and by view (including drafting views).

Anonymous

I agree, Revit should have a build in Excel import function. I use excel to do my energy calcs and then import it into Revit using a 3rd party app. Schedules are such a key feature of Revit that this function should be part of Revit. The problem is I am using Revit 2018 and the 3rd party app is still 2017 version, so I am forced to use Revit 2017 till company decides to bring out latest version. Very frustrating...

Anonymous

Good thoughts.  I'd personally like to see a both-and in this case; small projects could probably benefit from wielding a simple text file, where large firms/projects could better streamline with a gorilla-sized management solution.

 

I would take this one step further to say that the entire "tag" system should be more streamlined.  Category tags, multi-category tags, and material tags personalized through two dozen category customizations.  Plus three flavors of keynotes.  All of this combined with some things that can be noted one or two ways and other things which must be noted a completely separate way.  Flexibility is nice, overwhelming inconsistency is not.

Explorer
Explorer

Nearly 100% of all construction documents require keynoting. The current keynoting system has a great feature of automatically keeping track of the keynotes per sheet, but the keynote file creation, editing, and refreshing are critically flawed.  Having the external text file can cause corruption and also causes issues in sharing models across different networks, including but not limited to Collaboration for Revit C4R.

 

Needed Solution Attributes:

  • Be editable in the project environment, like all other Revit data
  • Be editable by multiple people at the same time, like all other Revit scheduled elements
  • Automatically filter the schedule on the sheet to show only those elements visible on related views (keynoting has accomplished this)

Possible Solutions

  • Allow keynote elements to be stored in the project and edited without external files OR
  • Allow annotation schedules (note blocks) to automatically filter by the sheet they are on.  This method is used by a large number of companies, but currently they have to create a separate schedule and type a separate filter for every single sheet and every single annotation needs to have a sheet parameter manually filled out.  The manual method can lead to discrepancies on split views, omission, and a LOT of wasted human effort doing something the database could do automatically.
Anonymous

Keynoters and Shared Parameters shouldn't be external files to begin with. They should be lists of user defined presets that can be created, edited and selected from all within Revit. But I suppose that runs contrary to Revit's established aversion to user defined ANYTHING, and there are bigger fish to fry currently.

Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Revit Keynotes are pretty difficult to use.  I have the following suggestions to make them a bit simpler.

 

I really think that keynotes should be easy to do.  "Handle it with a note" is supposed to be a quick and easy way of adding something to a drawing in a trivial way.  Having to fight with Revit's arcane and difficult-to-use Keynotes is beyond frustrating.

 

1>  Provide an editor inside of Revit for editting keynotes.  

2>  Provide the ability to place keynotes unhosted on a floorplan

3>  Provide the ability to place keynotes unhosted on a sheet

4>  Allow per sheet keynotes which don't need a centralized database of keynotes that you can refer to.

5>  Allow a user to add a keynote from the plan.  Ideally click where the note tag is and then let you type it in.

6>  Maybe it would make sense to eliminate the whole centralized database of keynotes.  Or allow users to pick sheet keynotes or global keynotes.

 

Editing Revit keynotes text files is so finicky since it is sensitive to whitespace characters. Rather than depending on users understanding that a tab is different from a end line vs a space, Just provide an editor in Revit!  Or allow it to be exported / imported into csv or excel.

 

With the above suggestions, I believe using Revit keynoting can one day be more pleasant than a stick in the eye.

 

Anonymous

I think a good perform would be if we could add keynote text directly to the types and the legend worked just as it work now! by sheet, but eliminating totally the use of the txt, or giving the option of using or not the txt file!

 

Advocate
Advocate

Keynotes are currently made via Excel or simple txt files with editor. A more user friendly tool would save a lot of time and will also be an incentive to use this time saving feature.

Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Do we need some Russian meddling to get this to the top of the list along with Hatch Editor within Revit?  I will point out again that this is a multi billion dollar industry; please assign a programming team to these two basic functions and get it done.  Not asking much.  We want things to be integrated into the software program and easy to use, not be jacking around with 3rd party plugins and notepad files.  This is beta testing interface stuff that should be behind the scenes, not legitimate software that we pay top dollar for.

Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Amen!!!!!


Advocate
Advocate

I couldn't agree more. I had been using keynotes for years in Vectorworks, which lets me create and edit keynotes on the fly. But since moving to Revit LT, I just can't muster the energy to adopt Revit's convoluted sequence of creating a tab-delimited text file BEFORE starting to annotate my drawings. That's just not the way we work. I mean, really. 

 

 

Anonymous

This has been the bane of my existence on every project. Our workflow is to quickly create placeholder user keynotes, annotate the drawings and then progressively update the keynotes as we resolve the design. We use some simple third-party tools but having to constantly reload the bloody keynotes file is ridiculous. 

 

Current keynote system is one of the most rudimentary, on the brink of being useless, and least BIM-like features in Revit. This should not be the case in a modern application that strives to be the leader in the market.

 

cheers,

-tomek

Anonymous

I hear you Tomek.  I actually have stopped using it.  Here's what I do:

 

I made an annotation family which is a keynote tag (hexagon or diamond with a number in it).  Then I place that annotation on my view or sheet.  Then I make a legend with the matching keynote or legend.  I have to make a new legend for each sheet to allow the keynotes to be different per sheet, but that's no big deal.

 

I've been much happier since doing this.  No more editing text files.  No more reloading.  No more dodgy revit keynote schedules that reorder however they want.  No more placing revit keynote tags that are hosted to real revit items that disappear taking the keynote tag with it...none of that.

 

Now if I place a keynote (annotation) tag, it goes where I want it and stays.  It doesn't move or re-number itself.  So much easier.   I wish I had thought of this earlier.  I guess I wanted to believe Revit's built-in system was good and it was me not understanding....nope, it's just a terrible pile of garbage.  Don't use it!

Anonymous

Allow us to edit keynotes & Keynote files from within Revit!!!  Why doesn't this ever happen?  

Anonymous

Also, within the editor, allow us to select from existing views from within the project so that we can make dynamic detail references that change when a detail/view is moved to another sheet.

Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I am new to this forum and not sure if this topic has been exhausted. I wonder if anyone has suggested to Autodesk that the Keyed Notes function should be improved. It seems antiquated and cumbersome that a txt file be edited outside of Revit and then loaded in. Is it possible to integrate the text file into the Revit environment in the form of a legend or spreadsheet of sorts?

Anonymous

Flashbacks of 2009 forums!

10 years of asking keynoting to be improved.

Look up keynote manager - revolution design. This is why they will never incorporate it. Autodesk would have to pay. They rather make users pay third party for the functionality.

Collaborator
Collaborator

This may already be in one of the comments (I'm not going to read them all), but we also need to be able to specify the the order of the keynotes on each sheet. 

We also need to be able to have blank spaces in the keynote legend. Suppose we delete keynote #2 a keynote as a part of a revision. Number 2 in the legend should be blank, so we can cloud the empty space indicating something used to be there but now it isn't.

Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Should we post this to change.org?  How many more hundreds of votes to we need for this bill before it becomes a law?

Explorer
Explorer

I've recently started using pyRevit and it has a great keynote Manager tool and its free.

 

Autodesk adopt what the developers of pyRevit have done. it's that simple

Anonymous

Keynote Manager is a great 3rd party for this issue until Autodesk deals with it.

https://apps.autodesk.com/RVT/en/Detail/Index?id=604656466920293522&appLang=en&os=Win64

But I completely agree that Keynotes Need to be integrated into Revit fully, and editing them should be as easy as editing a regular schedule in Revit. (Because then we can edit these in Excel and then push them back into Revit.)

Enthusiast
Enthusiast

@Anonymous this is what we use currently as well.  Not bad.  Fussy with collaboration and multiple user situations for sure, but definitely better than manually editing in Notepad.

Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Revit needs to have a built-in Keynote Legend Manager/Editor where the keynote values and descriptions can be created/edited and managed from within Revit.

  • Heading, Sub-Headings/Values should also be visible in the Keynote Legend when placed onto sheets with the option of alignments (left, centre or right).
  • An option of ALL Keynotes relating to the project should be allowed to be visible in the Keynote Legend (whether tagged to an element/material or not).
  • The option of setting a font style for Headings and Sub-Headings to the Keynote Legend.
  • The option to Export the Keynote Legend to Excel or to a csv file.
Contributor
Contributor

Since BIM 360 has been unable to keep the keynote.txt file updated in our office across multiple users on collaborative projects we now use google sheets to collaboratively work on the keynotes in real time, place keynotes in the Revit file as we go (which stay blank in the legend until we update the .txt file) and then periodically update the .txt file by uploading into BIM 360 web interface. Nothing else seems to work for projects with multiple users. 

Contributor
Contributor
Advocate
Advocate

Yes! Built-in keynoting needs to be a thing. Also needs to have multi-user support. 

Strongly support this idea. We should not have to use third party software to achieve a basic documentation requirement. 

Observer
Observer

Why has this not been fixed yet?

this has been an issue since forever.

 

 

Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I know this sounds negative and complainy BUT.... using text editor/excel outside of the Drawing Interface is something we did back in year 1999...when it was AutoCAD 14 or AutoCAD 2000. It is so antiquated. We are now in 2023! Revit has amazing features, so...let's make them upgrade the keynote capabilities. It's way overdue.

Observer
Observer

It amazes me that we still don't have integration at this point. I have been using the software commercially since 2007 and I have been frustrated ever since. There are free third-party softwares that try to manage it but they are limited by the current Revit architecture. We have even written an in-house program to assist in editing our keynote files, but we shouldn't have to do that for something that should be integrated into a BIM software. Come on Autodesk, you can do better!

Insert a Keynote Manager dialog to easily edit Keynote values inside revit