Instance Parameters not loading into family? (Revit 2017)

[richard.pilla]

Hello all, first post here!

I work at a fairly small firm, and I'm pretty new to Revit (My only drafting experience prior has been in AutoCAD) and I'm running into an issue with importing an annotation family into a project:

The family in question is a duct tag made of two lines of text (in separate blocks)that illustrate the tagged duct's dimensions. The first line lists the drawn duct's dimensions, while the second line displays the duct's distance up from the floor (known as a bottom of duct, or B.O.D. height). So, for example, a duct tag that looks like this:

12"x12" (100")

B.O.D.: 6'-1"

would mean that this duct has a 12" height, a 12" width, is 100" in length, and has a distance gap of 6'-1" between the duct's bottom and the floor. When importing it as is, the tag functions fine. Just load the family, select "Tag By Category", and it tags the above data on whatever piece of duct you click on.  However, the tag itself can make the floor plan look a little cluttered, so I wanted to give the tag an option to turn off the visibility of the second line when appropriate. Logically, the easiest thing to do would be to make the second line an instance parameter, right?  

So, I went into Family Types for the second line, created a new yes/no parameter called B.O.D. Visibility, and changed it to an instance parameter. The odd thing is, when I test imported this into a floor plan as an instance parameter, the B.O.D. Visibility option does not show up in the Properties Palette at all, and I am unable to show/hide the second line as I see fit. If i change it back to a Type parameter, B.O.D. Visibility still doesn't show up in the properties palette, but it does show up in the Edit Type window(Type Properties) and it toggles the second line on and off if you click it, but it does that for ALL of the placed tags.

Why is this happening? Everything I've read appears to suggest that the opposite should be true, where you cannot load a family into a project unless it is an instance parameter. Nobody else seems to be having this problem, is it something wrong with my system?

I've attached a few files to better explain my situation, Duct Tag is (obviously) the problem family in question. (I set it to type parameter just to illustrate the issue better). The other file is just an old tutorial that I was testing the duct tag in, I drew some duct pieces in the middle of the room to experiment on(Maybe it could provide some clues?). Any help would be appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Just make a second type with the BOD turned off and toggle the tag type as needed.  

As to why the parameter isn't showing up when you reload the modified family, I'd have to look at the actual project to be certain.  But if you just switch it to a type parameter and make a new tag type you'll be fine.  We do this all the time with nearly all of our tags.  Better to have a single light switch tag family with multiple types than multiple families.

[ToanDN]

They have to be different Tag types.

For Type based families (Tags, Call-out bubbles, Section/Elevation Marks, View Title) parameters are only accessible under Edit Type, which renders Instance parameters useless.

[richard.pilla]

bsammis,

Thank you for replying. Unfortunately, setting up a new type parameter ("B.O.D. Visibility OFF") was the first trick I tried. All that happened was it added an extra toggle option that, when loaded into the project, didn't affect the tags. Its this weird scenario where, if I change it to type, it loads and toggles but only as an "all tags or nothing" case. If I switch it to instance (to allow manual toggling of individual tags), it doesn't show up (under the Edit Type) at all.   

Is it an issue with Revit's OS?

-Rich

[richard.pilla]

ToanDN,

Is there some kind of workaround I can use? Having the option to toggle individual tags on/off (something I can't do under Type parameters) should not be this much of a hassle.

-Rich

[Anonymous]

In the family editor, you need to 1) create a visibility parameter for each label you want to be able to toggle, 2) create a new tag type for each on/off combination you want available, 3) create new labels for each on/off combination and assign them to their respective visibility parameters, and 4) in each tag type adjust the default yes/no check boxes to display only the combination you want in that type.

When you create a yes/no visibility parameter, Revit defaults to the yes option for all types in the family.  I've attached an example from our standard library, we've been using this and a host of others for nearly a decade.