Categorize Tabbed Views

[sampie]

The new tabbed views feature in Revit 2019 is great! Thank you for it.

It is a bit confusing when you have multiple project files open. You might have views in different projects that are the same name. It would be great if you can categorize the tabs per project by using color coding for example.

[GraphOnto]

Fundamental to the nature of using BIM is seamless switching from one view to another, sometimes in mid command.  The current (and original) implementation of view tabs is marginally better than using the navigator, but only until there are more than 3 or 4 tabs open. Then, because there is no automatic and reliable organization, and no differentiation beyond small icons and view names, it slips into being less useful than the navigator in my opinion. I still use them, but mostly because I feel like I should.

It looks like there is a huge pile of feedback and votes about this topic, 5 years running.

When professional designers can collaborate together using LLMs to code and iterate an open source BIM solution, I hope we can muster the same level of feedback and engagement. I'm looking forward to diverse development at the pace of coherent feedback. It could be amazing for a while before we all perish.

[bweinreder]

I'm sure it's a "grander scope" issue. Long story short, I think this topic
just doesn't gain enough traction. Longer version, if they encourage users
to have more projects open, Revit will be more likely to suffer performance
and stability issues. This could be solved by giving each project its own
core, and we'll be more likely to see a Revit in the cloud where these
issues will be solved differently.

[Ric_Weber]

Moving all apps to the cloud is the direction I think Autodesk is heading, but that's just my opinion on that.  In my opinion, based on various little things (e.g. Forma), that is the direction that Autodesk is moving in and will push towards.  Just my humble opinion though.  

[joseph.corsi]

Why doesn't REVIT incorporate the concept of tab colours, as in PyREVIT? This would make it much easier to see the different cases, and each user would not have to ask his IT department to add an additional plug-in.

[MiWolff]

Because that addin can be installed even without admin priviledges and so imo AD should not bother.

[colinqBYUV9]

I find it difficult managing 2 or more open projects without having to click a tab and then look at the Project name, especially when they are similar projects.

Can the tab colour change when there are two or more projects open?

[h.bakkerPE58B]

The plugin pyRevit has a Tab Coloring function for projects and families. 
Under settings UI/UX you can set the coloring by default when opening a family or project.

Would be great if Revit would implement this.

[wr.marshall]

@kimberly_fuhrman-jones please combine with Categorize Tabbed Views - Autodesk Community

[colinqBYUV9]

Thanks @h.bakkerPE58B I'll check it out. 

[mcoquereau]

This implementation should be an easy one, as it doesn't affect the core of Revit coding (well, I guess?).

Also, as far as I know, Revit users tend to work on large scale projects, which require a lot of coordination with other ones, as well as with families and templates to keep one's office files in good order.

Many ideas shared in the comments to this post. To resume what I saw as relevant:

1. Grouping tabs by project/family/file under a "super-tab" (there is actually this huge gap below the ribbon which could be reduced to accommodate it without loss of visual efficiency)

2. Color-code tabs for each project/family/file opened

3. Let users freely choose between super-tabs or color-coded tabs modes, relevant to their preferences and workflows (sometimes, I'd prefer to group Elevations of different files. It depends on my actual specific task

4. Let users freely organize super-tabs just like actual tabs (I like to move it move it)

5. Let users freely choose colors for each project (plus, you get daltonians to be happy (I'm not))

@Anonymous team, please make it a priority. Simple (well, I guess?), efficient, satisfying for millions of users.

[RLY_15]

Currently view tabs do not indicate which file they are associated to (I'm assuming to keep the tab graphic suitably small). This means that you can have separate project files open, all with identical tab names ("3D View"), which might require you to open up views individually or use the Switch Windows button to find the project tab you're attempting to open.

As an additional tool to differentiate tabs, can we have tab colors correspond to the file they are associated to? This could probably use a color-blind friendly palette, and would be deployed as a predetermined palette in a predetermined order based on what order the project files were opened.

This does not allow you to directly determine which tab is for which project, but multiple tabs sharing a color would offer context clues.

[jonnyDJVAN]

So, I often have several models open at once, and several views from each model open. Over time it becomes more & more difficult to determine which tab belongs to which model. One thing that would definitely help is if all the tabs attached to a specific model locked together. But then I got to thinking that there might be users who want to separate their tabs for some kind of work-flow reason(s). If that's the case, perhaps a better solution would be to color-code model tabs, so for instance all open views on "model A" are the standard Revit background color, all "model B" tabs are a darker grey, "model C" tabs are black with grey text, and so on.  So that if you had say 3 models open and 5 views on each model, you would have 15 tabs, but 3 sets of beige, 3 of darker grey, and 3 of black. 

Possibly both could be used, where tabs from each model lock together as a default, but if the user wants to separate them then they still have the colors to link to each model.

Thanks for your consideration

[mpukas]

the pyRevit extension has Tab Coloring function. 

It should be standard with Revit OOTB. It's laziness on Autodesk's part that they've not provided it. 

[wr.marshall]

@kimberly_fuhrman-jones please combine with: Categorize Tabbed Views

[Mark_Engwirda]

@sampie and @wr.marshall consider the ability to pin tabs as well as categorised tabs, it would be just as useful and I believe it needs real consideration for inclusion but it doesn't have the votes, yet.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/revit-ideas/pin-quot-active-quot-views/idi-p/10952381 

[umut.akparlar]

This feature should be built in but at least you can do it with pyRevit plugin>tab coloring. 

[richardjagger]

You can unless you use LT when plugins are not available.

[mcoquereau]

• @umut.akparlar , I do use PyRevit’s tab coloring, which is still vert limitated. I’d like something exactly like GChrome tab grouping. 

[mpukas]

This is a feature that should be built in to Revit OOTB, and it should perform like Google Chrome tabs. 

[lionel.kai]

That's exactly what I told the developers during beta, but they just made excuses about color-blind users and needing to follow Windows/Microsoft conventions... same thing with not being able to (easily) drag tabs around. They "checked the box" so they could add it to the feature list for the update, but it's not implemented very well...

BTW, my preference is to use pastel colors to keep the tab text black. If interested (put in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\pyRevit\pyRevit_config.ini):

[core]
colorize_docs = true

[tabcoloring]
sort_colorize_docs = false
tabstyle_index = 8
family_tabstyle_index = 3
tab_colors = ["#FFFBDEAE","#FFC8D5E1","#FFAAAAFF","#FFAAFFAA","#FFFFFFAA","#FFAAD5FF","#FFFFC1AA","#FFAAFFFF","#FFDDEEBB","#FFFFAAD9"]