How to programmatically open Type Properties dialog for System Families?

[Anonymous]

Hey!

We are trying to validate our project against our database to see if we have descriptions of all the Families and Family Types used in the project. We have a simplistic user interface that reads all lines of a created Schedule and displays with traffic light colors if a given family in Schedule is correctly configured or not. If we used a family that didn't have it's description in our database we'd like to provide the user an option to insert db identificator parameter or property to the system family. As we understand, System Families (walls, roofs, etc) don't have the same kind of Family Editor that loaded families have. You can't assign Family Parameters to System Families and thus the FamilyParameter.Set() method doesn't work because the IsEditable flag is false for these families. As a workaround we can add project parameters in the Type Properties dialog but there isn't a fast way to pop this dialog up using Revit API. If a loaded family is missing identificator parameters then we open the family editor with a double click in our interface and we'd like to have the same kind of functionality for System Families where, instead of opening Family Editor, we open the Type Properties dialog. We haven't yet been able to find a solution.

Since English is not my native language, I may have problems properly articulating our specific scenario. If you have any questions what we are trying to achieve, please ask!

[Revitalizer · Accepted solution]

Hi,

did you try this ?

RevitCommandId commandId = RevitCommandId.LookupPostableCommandId(PostableCommand.TypeProperties);

if (uiApplication.CanPostCommand(commandId))
{
    uiApplication.PostCommand(commandId);
}

Revitalizer

[Anonymous]

Wow, it was that easy. We already started to mess around with keyboard shortcuts. Any solution for how to handle the Revit multiple commands error?

[Revitalizer]

Hi,

no solution, sorry.

I don't know that error.

May it be a side effect of "messing around with keyboard shortcuts" ?

😉

Perhaps you could add a screen shot of this error, so some of the Autodesk employees could look after it.

Revitalizer

[Anonymous]

Apparently Revit has this policy that you can't run multiple commands at once. This includes ExternalCommands and PostableCommands. I had a dialog open in my external command while I wanted to run the PostableCommand and this was what caused the problem/error. Now that I closed the dialog before posting the command everything works as it should.