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Ask before upgrading a project

Ask before upgrading a project

Revit should ask before upgrading a project to a new Revit version.

 

It's far too easy to accidentally open a project in the wrong version of Revit and if you do, you then have to try to cancel the upgrade which can take a while.

 

A simple dialog box stating:

 

'By opening this project Revit will upgrade it. Are you sure?'

 

would save a lot of wasted time.

14 Comments
Anonymous
Not applicable

Would it be possible to give the user a choice whether or not a model updates when opened?  Or the ability to stop such update?  Upon opening a model, Revit invariably begins to update to the current version, eg 2016 updates to 2018 whether the customer wants it or not.  There's one chance to stop it, but not before the process has already begun.  As a corollary, why is saving to an older version, (backwards compatibility) prohibited?

Anonymous
Not applicable

Same thing for Families.

dgorsman
Consultant

Backwards compatibility is more difficult than some would realize.

 

Consider going back to ye olde England and trying to converse with the residents.  Yes, they're still speaking English, but when you say things like "computer" "operating system" or "social media" they have no concept of what you're talking about.  Eventually you'll be able to get some basic information across but there will be a lot left out.

 

Same thing with the data in Revit - earlier versions won't know what to do with the data found in newer versions.  The choices are either to risk corrupted data, or to leave out something important, or not try in the first place.

Anonymous
Not applicable

dgorsman:

I understand it's difficult, but we're not talking about 400 years of software.  We're talking maybe 3 versions-2015 to 2018 for example.  The 20 years I spent interpreting software and making it play nice with hardware does indeed give me a pretty good concept of what's involved, thanks for asking.  Other softwares even ask you what to do with the non-translatable objects.

 

"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

J.F.K.  Rice University September 12, 1962

 

Virtually every other CAD system allows you to save to at least one earlier version.  Your response just makes you sound lazy and condescending.

The main thrust of my request was to allow the user to decide whether or not to update the model.  With a single mouse click would be nice, and before 5 minutes pass for the choice to be made.  Perhaps even some way to cancel it if I miss the window, before I wait half an hour for it to needlessly update.

Anonymous
Not applicable

@Anonymous wrote:

Virtually every other CAD system allows you to save to at least one earlier version.  Your response just makes you sound lazy and condescending.


I think the point is in this sentence. Revit is not a CAD system. In CAD you mainly have lines with  basic information, I don't think you can save all the new features to older versions, like some newer ways to enter text, schedules,... The BIM information is way more difficult to "translate". Say you have 30 filters with OR function, how to translate back to 2018 "language".

 

BTW totally agree on the main idea, mainly with beginners it can be a potential risk to damage files. Other way may be to force the user not to overwrite documents from older versions. 

Anonymous
Not applicable

acastilloPPM2E:

Point taken.  Still...it'd nice to be able to open a project without having to shell out $$Big for the new version software as the only way to work on it.  If a team of programmers can come up with Revit, I'm sure they could make it backwards compatible if they tried really hard.

Not being forced to overwrite older versions is an excellent workaround.  It was this very thing that got me in trouble with a project recently.  Fortunately, the project was finished and I was doing as-builts, so no future modifications were needed.  If your suggestion was in place, it would have saved me a lot of guilt, if nothing else.

dgorsman
Consultant

"Virtually every CAD system allows you to downsave at least one version..."

 

Inventor?  Nope.

PDMS?  Nope.

AutoPLANT (blech)?  Nope.

SmartPlant?  Nope.

Civil3D?  Nope.

PDS?  Nope.

 

Shall I continue?

Anonymous
Not applicable

dgorsman

"Inventor?  Nope.

PDMS?  Nope.

AutoPLANT (blech)?  Nope.

SmartPlant?  Nope.

Civil3D?  Nope.

PDS?  Nope.

 

Shall I continue?"

 

That won't be necessary, thanks.

AutoCAD?  Yes

MEP? Yes

Architectural? Yes

Solidworks? Yes (sorta)

Visio? Yes

3DS Max? Yes

 

The point, especially with these, is that they open an older version using a newer version without a mandatory "update" of the contents.  Messages are given warning of the differences and options are presented to mitigate them.  Revit does no such thing.  It just begins an update that is difficult to stop and destroys the older version in the process.

The example I bring up above went as follows:

   I was asked to add as-built changes to a 2015 Revit model using Revit 2016.  The 2015 model began to update with a single click.  The process took over an hour, with many warnings about links needing to be updated along the way-something like a dozen links.  Each of these subsequent warnings suggested opening the links separately, updating them and relinking to avoid the warnings down the road.  I began this process until one of my coworkers attempted to open and edit the project in 2015 and was unable to do so.  This caused rather a ruckus, shall we say.

   If Revit was able to more effectively warn of the consequences of updating, or simply open the older version and warn to save-as, the "bloodshed" could have been averted.  Instead, if this project needs to be readdressed, we'll have to start from scratch.  We'd have to eat that cost.  (Or it may just be me, personally.)

   How can it be so hard to just add a level of protection for the user, as acastillo suggested?

purvigirwin
Advocate

For what it's worth, I was told directly by the Head Revit developer at Autodesk that every time there's a change to a feature, they have to change the API, which necessitates a version change, that's just how the software is set up. They can do small UI changes without changing the version, but not big changes. I actually think you might have the same problem opening say a 2019.1 file in 2019 (but I can't say definitively as I don't have 2019 now)

cmcnamara
Participant

Yes, but we also need to be able to suppress this message in dynamo / api / batch files so we can run batch upgrades (on purpose).  🙂 

Kevin.Bell
Advisor

To add to this, ask before upgrading should also apply to linked models... If the user clicks NO then the linked model would remain unloaded.

HVAC-Novice
Advisor

My Revit asks me before upgrading old version families and projects. So I'm not sure what bureaucracy you want to add. 

 

Upgrading also doesn't change the original file unless you save over that. 

Kevin.Bell
Advisor

@HVAC-Novice - what exactly does it say?

nmarcelis
Advisor

You can always blame that the intern upgraded the model to a newer version 😉

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