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.

[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.

[MichaelWolff]

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.

[robert2JCCH]

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"]

[umut.akparlar]

Colour blind users can use grayscale colours for tabs or most games have colour blind mode, so it is doable. 

Also moving tabs behaviour also needs to improve. It should be like on the edge browser, I should see a semi-transparent tab overlay during moving the tab. Most of the time I don't know which tab that I move or where it moves. 

Last thing, when I move the tab to second monitor and make it full screen there is no ribbon menu on top of the tab. It is just a simple window. Want to work or compare multiple projects but I need to look another monitor for seeing the ribbon menu, so I must work on same monitor. 

[Mark_Engwirda]

Ribbons on multiple monitors would be a real advance in workflow but where
does it end as the next logical step would be accompanying browsers as
well.

[bweinreder]

It's not like we're requesting an interface overhaul, just a feature tweak.
Ribbons also took a few versions to get right (hands up if you've been a
user since before the 2012 release). Autodesk updates around a dozen
features each year to justify charging money for a new version, and this
should be an easy win. Another one they're neglecting is region specific
date/time settings which is simply a tweak in one line of code, but that's
another topic altogether.
The point is that the tweaks they focus on don't always make sense to
me, it's a Small Annoying Thing which they have a team for that lives
somewhere between bug fixes and the wish list.