Quickly Duplicate and Rename a Type

[TheMattatonAP]

Has anyone run across and add-in or macro that can quickly duplicate and rename a type?

The built-in process of creating a new type is too slow.

1. Select an element of that type in the workspace
2. Edit Type
3. Duplicate
4. Rename
5. Change Params

Yeah, I know you can create a new type by right-clicking the family in the Project Browser, but that list can get crazy long and daunting to sort through.

I'd like to be able to perhaps right-click an element in the workspace and have a "Create New" option alongside the current "Create Similar" or something that would duplicate the type and go straight to naming the new type and then to editing the params for the new type.

It'd also be nice to be able to edit type params in Properties like we can with instance params. Yes, I understand the difference, but I can see the process for editing type params being much more streamlined.

Just having a "Create New Type" button alongside the "Edit Type" button would be great. And, again, the type params in Properties.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Matt

[Anonymous]

It seems that you are suggesting:

1. Select an element of that type in the workspace

2. Right click the element.

3. Choose 'Create new'

4. Type the new name

5. Change parameters

This appears to be the same amount of steps.

In terms of instance and type parameters, there is an extra click to edit type parameters.  They need to be separate so that we don't get mixed up regarding which is which.

[TheMattatonAP]

Right-click and Create New is faster. That much is obvious. It's not just steps and clicks, it's mouse travel, etc.

A simple heading in Properties could separate instance from type properties. Doesn't seem too complicated to me.

[Anonymous]

But you are suggesting an Add-in or macro for this - is that obviously faster?

There is a heading in the properties to edit the type.

[TheMattatonAP]

That's not a heading. That's a button. The params aren't exposed until you click it.

A macro or add-in is to add functionality that isn't in Revit. This functionality isn't in Revit, ergo, add-in or macro?

An add-in that created a new type with 1 click is 1 click faster than the current process. So, yeah, if it worked that way, it's obviously faster. Thanks for asking.

[Anonymous]

Well the functionality is in Revit.  If you think that starting a macro, or navigating to an add-in will be faster than the current functionality well, OK, but I'm not sure how.

In that case, perhaps you could create a dynamo script for this?

[TheMattatonAP]

The functionality exists in Revit, but not as described. Virtually anything that any macro or add-in does you can already do in Revit with more steps added to the process. That's exactly what a macro is.

I can pin an add-in tool directly to the Quick Access Bar. If it duplicated a type and immediately opened the type dialog with the rename dialog open, that saves time. Yes, it's only a couple clicks, but those clicks add up when you're duplicating types a lot. (In my case we're experimenting with Note Blocks. But that's an entirely different subject.)

I'm trying Dynamo now. Dynamo is great, but it adds its own convolution to the process. An add-in is best. I just don't know the programming languages behind add-ins well enough to go there myself.

I appreciate you trying to point out how the current process isn't that slow. I use it often, it's just this new thing we're trying to explore requires adding lots of types to a given family and we need to do it quickly and easily.

[RobDraw]

---

@TheMattatonAP wrote:

Yes, it's only a couple clicks, but those clicks add up

---

To what?

[TheMattatonAP]

Time and inefficiency. 

[Karol_Piroska]

you can build your own via Dynamo... I dont think it will save you any time at all and can well lead to errors:

https://forum.dynamobim.com/t/renaming-a-family-type/11638/4

[RobDraw]

---

@TheMattatonAP wrote:

Time and inefficiency. 

---

Well said!

[TheMattatonAP]

I created a Dynamo script that allows me to quickly add a new type and put in the key param values. Does the job for now.