Can you make materials always automatically listed in the material browser?

[RiffRaff.Mama]

Can materials be made automatically available to all families without having to "create new material" for every different component you import? Say I'm importing a lot of different casework - upper cabinets, lower cabinets, corner pantry, whatever - and I want it all painted gloss white. For every different family/component I import I have to go to Manage>Materials>create new material>open asset browser>search for white gloss paint>make it the new material>rename it from "default new material" to "gloss white" before I can paint that one cabinet. Then I import a different cabinet or whatever and in order to paint it the same I have to repeat the whole creation process just to use the white gloss paint again. It's so bloody time consuming! Is there some way to save a created material so it always automatically appears in the material browser popup when you select the paint tool? Things like "glass" are always automatically there, so there must be a way to add frequently used materials to the material browser, surely?

[ToanDN]

Add them to your project template.

[barthbradley]

My suggestion would be to assign Materials (and Paint) to Family Material Parameters and then assign Project Materials to those Parameters in the Project.  Project Materials always rule the day. In other words, if your Family uses a Material Named "Red" in the Family and it's red in color, but the Project has a "Red" Material that is blue in color, then guess what color the Family will be in the Project. If you guessed blue, you guessed right.  

FWIW: here's how you Paint with a Material Parameter.  NOTE: "(param)".  

https://wrw.is/how-to-assign-parameter-to-painted/

[RiffRaff.Mama]

Thank you for letting me know there is a way.

I have just had a poke around in a project I'm working on and I have no idea how to add something to the project template... could someone please walk me through it?

TIA.

[barthbradley]

I don't know who you are replying to or what your question is.  

[ToanDN]

Create a new project, add all the materials you need, and save as project template RTE. When you start a new project using this template, all materials are ready to use.  To add these materials to an old project, open the old project and the template and run transfer project standards > materials to bring them in.

[barthbradley]

Ah! I think I get it. You aren't saving the Materials you create.  Right-click on the new Material and use "Add to" to save the Material to your Favorites folder.  That's the perfect folder to use until you get the hang of creating and using ASDKLIBs.