This Idea is part of a series I'm putting together following the release of Revit 2018 and the update of the Revit Roadmap. It focuses on the low level broken bits of Revit that haven’t been fixed for years on end, and the Factory continually ignores, as they focus more on adding niche cutting-edge functionality instead of helping the bread-and-butter firms that pay their subs and whose time is being wasted on workarounds and inefficiency. Look for the prefix UK19.
LEGENDS
Legends have been broken for many years, and despite countless wishlist posts and Revit Ideas submissions, they remain unfixed, off the roadmap, and fundamentally unusable.
Legends may not be a glamorous part of Revit development, but they represent an area that absorbs thousands of wasted hours in workarounds and inefficiency. It's one big area of Revit that simply isn't BIM at all, because we can't leverage the I in the M! None of this can be solved by Dymamo or Third-Party solutions - they're all just time-wasting workarounds.
Here are a dozen areas that need fixing:
1. Taggable Legends
This is BIM, the data is there, let us tag it! We should not have to use dumb text in legends to represent data we’ve added, but can't access in the software. Tags should have full functionality and we should be able to tag whole components such as Wall Types, as well as subcomponents such as Wall Layers. We need to be able to tag materials in Legends. Keynote tags should also work.
2. Dimension Legends
We can crudely dimension limited elements in Legends, but we need full functionality. We need to be able to dimension wall thickness overall AND individual wall layers for instance.
3. Remove View Direction Restrictions
Why do some elements have restrictions on which View Direction is allowed. Ceilings are a classic example, which can't be shown on plan, only in section. We need to show different ceiling tile sizes etc on plan!
4. View Filters
Why don't Visibility/Graphic Override Filters work on Legends?!! When using legends as a key to a drawing that uses Filters, we have to manually make filled regions in matching colours!! Such a waste of time and effort.
5. Flip/Rotate Legend Components
We want to be able to show doors left or right handed, or rotated etc. Remove the restriction.
6. Copy-Paste between Sheets
Legends should not act like other Viewports. They should be able to be copied and pasted between Sheets
7. Transfer between projects
Neither Transfer Project Standards not Insert Views from File work with Legends AND they can't be copy pasted from the Project Browser (like Schedules can). It's laborious to recreate them on several files on a project and wasted hours again!
8. Metric Defaults
You don't know how frustrating it is in the metric world (the entire world except the USA) to keep seeing dumb colonial-era imperial defaults like 914.4mm appear in software, over and over like a recurring nightmare. I'm sure '3 feet' makes sense over there, but it doesn't anywhere else! The default should be 1m.
9. Legend Types (Project Browser)
We can have dozens of Legends in a project, from Noteblocks, to Keyplans, Legend Keys etc. Let us group and organise them in the Project Browser using Legend Types please.
10. Ignore Legend Scale on Sheet
There is no reason that a Legend should affect the Scale value in the titleblock of a Sheet to which it is added.
11. Adjust Parameters of Components
When we add a family component to a legend, we should be able to amend any parameter value (obviously not Type values) to make it display exactly as we wish on the Legend. This applies also curtain panel instance sizes in elevation.
12. Tables in Legends
I'll accept this is a wish, not a fix. Tables have been requested many times in Revit, in various guises. Tables in Legends would be nice.
If I've missed anything fundamental, or if something has been fixed and I've missed it, please comment.
