How to find which family is bringing in which object style sub categories

[HVAC-Novice]

I noticed my object styles contain a lot of unneeded subcategories. i assume those came in from manufacturer families etc. See below an example of the Generic model sub categories. the CLEARANCE is the only one i use and i understand a few are oob. but the majority are not.

to make things less cluttered I deleted all unused ones out of my template. But I suspect once i insert families with additional sub categories, they come back. So I want to clean up the families and eliminate/consolidate object style sub categories.

How do I know which family has those sub categories? I want to avoid having to open every single family and manually checking. I want to pay more attention to my families when I edit them for other reasons. but going through each family now is a lot of work. 

Is there a way to see which family owns what sub category? It seems I can delete them out of the project. But I'm not sure if that works if the family that owns that subcategory is still in. and I want to fix the family so they don't come back. So I need to determine which family has those sub categories. 

[mhiserZFHXS]

This is why manufacturer families and other downloads should only be used as a last resort in a time crunch...

[HVAC-Novice]

Sometimes you just have to use a manufacturer family to look how they did something, or to get the general geometry of a device. I often create new families from scratch, or based on families I already have. But using (at least a s a trial) of manufacturer families is sometimes required. 

Do object styles of nested (but not shared) families show up in the project? Will something bad happen if I delete a sub category that is used by a family in the project? 

[ToanDN]

Yes they are cluttering the Object Styles table but they may not be unneeded.  if you want manufacturers families to show correctly in the project you wouldn't want to delete them.

[HVAC-Novice]

I'm trying to find which family brings them in. Then I can edit the family and eliminate the sub categories inside the family. At that point they would be unneeded. 

As I work on my project and edit some families, I've been checking for object styles, but so far haven't found the culprits. But I haven't looked into nested families yet. But as I said above, I don't want to spend some days gong through every family inc. nested families and hope there is an easier way to find the families needing fixing.

[mhiserZFHXS]

How big is the project, and you do you have an idea of how many manufacturer families are in it?

I suppose one option that may not be the most accurate, but could give you a general idea would be to go to a floor plan, open up the object styles, and toggle the different subcategories to some color that will stick out to you.

But the only option to make sure you don't miss anything or delete anything unintentionally would be to find the families and open them up.

[barthbradley]

What would be the benefit of deleting them? Sub-Categories are our friends.   

..Wireframe a 3D View and Override the Projection Line Color of the Subcategory in the View (maybe to HOT PINK)  and see what Family is affected. 

[mhiserZFHXS]

I believe nested families object styles are brought into the host family, so you should be able to see them just when you open up a family from the project. If you don't see them there, they shouldn't be an issue in that instance.

[HVAC-Novice]

i don't use unedited manufacturer families. the families I use may be based on manufacturer families, though. 

I often create ne families from scaratch. But some complex families (like a fancy adaptive toilet stall family for example) is way beyond what I'm able or willing to create from scratch. So for the future I need to pay attention to this as well when I use and edit manufacturer family's. 

I want to resolve that for all families I use incl. future families. So every time I come across unneeded sub categories, I can clean it up again until I cleaned up all families. I'll try the coloring you suggested. But one concern is that if the item that uses a sub category may just not be visible, so I may still miss it.

Does anyone know if nested families' sub categories show up in the project?

Now that I cleaned up my template (yesterday), it might be better do that in the next project. Because the sub categories I have in my current project may just from the time before I cleaned my template and may not actually be related to any families I use. 

[mhiserZFHXS]

I'd say object styles mixed with VGOs are the closest thing to AutoCAD layers. They're obviously not as critical to the workflow, and are more forgiving, but you wouldn't want 500 layers in a CAD file, as you can lose track of what's what. Keeping object styles under control helps keep things organized.

[barthbradley]

I think you are overlooking the advantages of Subcategories.  But whatever.  To each their own.      

[ToanDN]

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@mhiserZFHXS wrote:

Keeping object styles under control helps keep things organized.

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Manufacturers create their own subcategories for the exact reason to give you more controls.  They (and you) don't want to turn off a certain subcategory of one family of one manufacturer and affect another family of another manufacturer, if they share the same subcategory, but with different purposes.

Deleting subcategories will dump all elements of those subcategories back to the main category, which is also the definition of losing control of those elements.

Some reputable manufacturers do add the company initial as a prefix to their subcategories so they sort and can be identified more easily.  I would the same to families created in-house.

[mhiserZFHXS]

I'm not looking over the advantages. I know they're helpful and I'm not saying to just willy-nilly delete everything. But looking through that snapshot list, it looks like there is a bunch of stuff that doesn't need their own subcategory and could be combined, or could just sit in the general category (which, I have a feeling there are some families categorized in "generic models" that should be placed somewhere else).

I suppose its a matter of opinion as to what "too many" subcategories would be, but they wants to cut it down, so I'm trying to help cut it down.

[HVAC-Novice]

The screenshot is just an example. I found sub categories in multiple categories. I actually never use Generic model category since it isn't really meaningful. but you gave me the idea that this helps me find the families I'm after. If I find mechanical equipment sub categories, I only need to look into Mechanical equipment families. Duh! That narrows it down a bit. 

As for the meaning of subcategories, I want to be in control and don't accept manufacturer settings. And even if the manufacturers are right, 2 manufacturers will use a different scheme and I have to fix it. Same reason I don't use manufacturer shared parameters. So far in all those years I only used the CLEARANCE sub category to control showing the equipment clearance. I'm sure there are other good reasons for sub categories, but I will heavily edit any manufacturer families to conform to what I want and so that all my families work similarly. 

[gtarch]

I've been going through this, cleaning up 15 years worth of all manner of families built and acquired on the fly, and cleaning out my materials libraries, linetypes, the whole sordid mess.

All I can say is you need to clean up YOUR templates, YOUR key in-house families and you make sure they are sqeaky clean and stay that way. 

But once you get a project going, you're going to get all kinds of contamination in your file, who's got the time to content police every little thing? The main thing is don't let the project files contaminate your clean in-house templates and families and clean them out when it happens.

You want a clean start every time, after that, it's all downhill.