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@LyndsB wrote:After some playing I figured it out myself using some of the steps mentioned. The key part to all of this that nobody tells you (in any forum or guide anywhere!) is that Revit generates the text within the shared file itself. So all you have to do is create a blank "Shared Parameter File" and let Revit do the work after that.
Yes! That's exactly what we told you above! Were you not in the room when @Ilic.Andrej said "No, there is no 'generic' text file that comes with revit. You are the one who creates the shared parameter file" or when I drew you a road map: "Manage Tab=>Shared Parameters=>Create" which would get you here:
And Nobody Tells You nothing when you press Help in the "Create Shared Parameter File" dialog box???
https://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2020/ENU/?guid=GUID-94EA2B8E-2C00-4D29-8D5A-C7C6664DE9CE
The images that @barthbradley posted cover the basic workflow of getting the file itself created, working entirely within the Revit interface. You can create an empty TXT file in Notepad if you like, but using the Create button in the Edit Shared Parameters file works just as well, and saves you the bother of using the Browse button to find the Notepad-created file and make it the "current" shared parameters file. (Yes, you can have multiple files, if you are so inclined. For an office standard file, I would advocate for a single file, or, a single file per discipline.)
With the file created (or a blank file selected), you will find that all of the buttons in the Parameters area are grayed out. That is because Shared Parameters have to be associated with a Group, and your new/blank file does not have any Groups defined, yet. You may want to give some thought to the sorts of Shared Parameters you expect to be making, and how those might be organized into Groups to make finding them easier. Or you can create a Group for the parameters you need for the task at hand, and build up your organization as you go. Either way, the first thing you need to do is select the New button in the Groups area, and create a Group. All you need to supply is a Group name in the Name edit box in the New Parameter Group dialog, then select OK. That will immediately show up as the current Group in the Parameter group drop-down list, as it is the only choice.
With a Group created, the Rename and Delete buttons in the Groups area become active, because now you have a Group to rename or delete. More importantly, the New button in the Parameters area becomes active. To create a new Shared Parameter in that Group, select the New button in the Parameters area. In the Parameter Properties dialog:
- Enter a name for the Parameter in the Name edit box.
- Select a Discipline for the new Shared Parameter.
- Select the Type of parameter you want to create (Text, Integer, Angle, Area, etc.) by choosing it from the Type of Parameter drop-down list.
- Optional (but a good idea) - Select the Edit Tooltip button and provide an explanation of the purpose of the parameter. Sometimes the Name may be enough for most people to understand the purpose of the parameter, but it never hurts to provide a short description to memorialize the initial intent for this parameter. Six months from now, when you have tens of parameters (or hundreds?), that description will be useful in jogging your memory as to the purpose of that parameter. (I find it so, anyway.)
Select OK to accept the values entered and return to the Edit Shared Parameters dialog. You will see the new parameter in the Parameters list box. If you have more Shared Parameters that should be in that Group, you can create them. At any point, you can create additional Groups, and add parameters to them. The list box will only show the parameters in the currently selected Group.
Once you have a parameter in a Group, the Properties, Move and Delete buttons become active, because now you have a parameter to which those actions can be applied. Properties shows you the Parameter Properties box, and the values you entered there - but you will not be able to edit any of them. If you find you made a mistake (I do this all the time), you will have to delete the parameter and recreate it. Move allows you to move it to a different group, once you have at least two Groups created. Delete allows you to delete the parameter.
When you are done creating Groups and Parameters, select the OK button to write the edits you made to the file. Or, if you decide you do not want to keep any of the edits you made, select Cancel. Be sure to keep track of where you saved the file, and the file name. It will be the default file when adding a Shared Parameter to a family or a project, and if you only ever have one Shared Parameters file, you are good to go. But if you end up with some project-specific Shared Parameters that you do not want in your main file, or you decide to create multiple files (per discipline, per project type, or per some other distinction), knowing where the file you need is will be helpful if you were in a different file the last time you were in Revit.
If you are not a sole practitioner, you will probably want to set up your Shared Parameters file in a network location that is accessible to everyone in the firm.
Another point to keep in mind is that once you add a Shared Parameter to a family or project, there is no ongoing relationship between that parameter and the Shared Parameter file from which it was created. Each Shared Parameter is assigned a globally unique identifier (GUID), and that is how Revit determines whether two Shared Parameters with the same name are actually the same Shared Parameter or not. You could delete the Shared Parameters file, or move it somewhere else, and the Shared Parameter in the family/project would happily keep on working. You probably will not want to delete the file - because that will make it hard to create more instances of that same Shared Parameter in other family or project files. (If disaster strikes, you can export Shared Parameters out to a new file, but it will dump everything in a "Exported" Group, and you would have to recreate your Groups and move the Parameters to get back to where you were in the original file.)
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