Configure custom Revit UI settings

00:04

In this video,

00:05

you'll learn how to configure options for the

00:08

rit user interface to meet your workflows.

00:12

More specifically,

00:13

you'll see how to control save reminder intervals and file location options.

00:20

You'll also see how to configure keyboard, shortcuts,

00:24

control snaps

00:25

and adjust selection settings

00:38

to access the user interface options for your installation of rit,

00:43

click the file tab

00:45

and then click options.

00:49

This opens the options dialogue.

00:52

Once again, the options here are specific to your installation of rev it,

00:58

they are not project specific.

01:02

We're not going to look at every single option here,

01:05

but we'll point out some of the main ones that you need to be aware of.

01:10

In the general options.

01:12

You can control the save reminder interval as

01:16

well as the synchronized with central reminder interval.

01:21

Simply expand the drop down and choose how often you want to be notified

01:28

in the user interface options.

01:30

You can control the tools and analyses that appear in the ribbon.

01:36

For example, if you don't want any of the mep tools to appear,

01:42

you can deselect systems, tab mechanical tools, systems,

01:47

tab electrical tools and systems, tab piping tools.

01:52

There are additional options here

01:54

and once again simply deselect an option

01:57

and those tools or analysis tools will no longer appear

02:02

on the various ribbon tabs.

02:07

Additionally,

02:08

you can configure the keyboard shortcuts by

02:11

clicking customize next to keyboard shortcuts.

02:14

This opens the keyboard shortcuts dialogue where you

02:18

can see all of the commands and rev it

02:21

and you can see the shortcuts and even add or remove shortcuts.

02:27

For example, for the modify command,

02:30

the shortcut is currently set to MD.

02:34

And when you click that row to highlight it,

02:37

then you can enter new keys in the press new keys field.

02:42

For example, I'll type mm

02:45

and then click assign

02:47

and we have now assigned mm to modify.

02:51

But in this case, we actually already have mm in use. So rev it notifies us of that

02:57

but be aware that duplicates are allowed and then you can just use the arrow

03:02

keys to cycle through the commands and then press space bar to execute the command.

03:08

I'll click OK?

03:10

And now we can see MD and MM for the modify command,

03:15

if you want to remove one,

03:17

simply select it under shortcuts

03:20

and then click, remove,

03:23

I'll click. OK? To close the keyboard shortcuts, dialog,

03:27

you can also control the double click options, adjust the tool tip assistance

03:33

and several other options here in the user interface options

03:39

for the graphic settings,

03:41

you can control various view navigation performance options

03:46

for the color settings.

03:48

You can set the color for the background

03:51

for the elements that are selected

03:54

for pre selection elements, which means those that you hover the cursor over

03:59

as well as alerts,

04:01

calculating

04:02

and rebar editing

04:05

in the hardware options.

04:06

You can control whether or not to use hardware acceleration

04:10

and whether or not to draw visible elements only

04:15

in the file location options, you can control the project templates.

04:20

And as you can see here,

04:22

the templates display in the list when you create a new project.

04:28

So you can add or remove templates here in this list,

04:32

you can also control the default path for user

04:35

files which are the local copies of central models.

04:40

So you really want to pay attention to those user files.

04:44

And then you can also control the default path for

04:46

family template files and the root path for point clouds

04:51

simply click browse and then navigate to the location

04:54

that you want to set for those options.

04:60

There are additional options here such as rendering, check, spelling,

05:04

steering wheels, view,

05:05

cube

05:06

and macros.

05:09

But really the ones we touched on are the ones that you really need to be aware of.

05:13

When you first start using

05:14

rit,

05:16

I'll click OK to close the options dialog

05:20

and then I'll switch to the view tab

05:22

and in the windows panel, I'll expand the user interface button

05:27

and I want to point out that you can

05:29

access the keyboard shortcuts from this user interface button.

05:34

And when I click keyboard shortcuts, it opens that same keyboard shortcuts,

05:39

dialogue,

05:42

I'll click, cancel to close the dialogue.

05:46

And next, we will take a look at

05:49

the selection settings.

05:52

Those can be accessed in the lower right corner

05:56

as well as in the select panel drop down.

06:01

So this actually appears on each tab of the ribbon.

06:06

So as I scroll through here, you can see that it always appears.

06:10

And when you expand that select panel, you can see the selection settings.

06:16

I typically recommend that everybody work with all of them disabled.

06:20

So what that means is that all of these will be unchecked in this drop down

06:24

and then you'll see a red X

06:27

over the icon in the lower right corner,

06:31

the selection settings are select links.

06:33

So when that's disabled, you will not be able to select linked models,

06:37

select underlay elements,

06:39

which allows you to select underlay elements,

06:42

select pinned elements,

06:44

select elements by face and then drag elements on selection.

06:50

Really. The first three

06:52

are, are clear in terms of what they do.

06:55

So links underlay elements and pinned elements,

06:58

select elements by face. Let's take a look at how this works.

07:02

Usually in order to select an element, you need to hover over an

07:06

edge or

07:08

some type of line work here. So for example, for the roof,

07:11

when I need to hover over one of these break lines or an edge,

07:17

but if I have

07:18

select elements by face enabled,

07:21

then all I have to do is be over a face and then I can click to select it.

07:28

Drag elements on selection

07:30

will simply allow you to click and drag

07:33

when you are over an element and you can drag it.

07:37

And so that can actually be a little bit dangerous.

07:39

And so that's why I recommend that people

07:42

at least have this one deselected by default.

07:46

So typically you select an element

07:48

and then you can move your cursor over it and see

07:50

the move icon and then you can click and drag it.

07:53

Whereas click and drag, all you have to do is be over it.

07:56

And then when you click and drag, it'll move it.

07:59

So if you were trying to drag a window

08:02

and you happen to be over an element,

08:04

it would actually move it.

08:06

And so that's why I typically recommend that people don't have that option enabled

08:15

continuing on.

08:16

I'm going to open

08:18

a floor plan view

08:20

and then I'll switch to the manage tab

08:23

and in the settings panel, I'll click snaps

08:26

to open the snaps dialogue.

08:29

This is where you can control the various snap options.

08:34

For example, you can control the length, dimension snap increments

08:38

and the angular dimension snap increments.

08:41

And then you can turn on and off the various object snaps.

08:46

Also pay attention to

08:49

the keyboard shortcut that appears in parentheses.

08:53

For example, the midpoint snap is SM

08:58

so I'll click OK to close this dialogue

09:00

and then I'm going to activate the wall tool

09:04

And

09:05

as you can see when I hover over a wall, I see when I get to the middle,

09:09

I can see the midpoint snap.

09:11

But if I'm anywhere else, I just see that nearest snap.

09:14

But when I type SM

09:17

rev, it is going to go directly to that midpoint snap.

09:22

So it's important that you become familiar

09:25

with those keyboard shortcuts so that you

09:28

can have rabbit use one of those as you are using a certain tool.

09:32

So I typically recommend that you leave all of them enabled and just

09:36

know the keyboard shortcut for when you want to use a particular one.

09:41

Additionally, you need to be aware of the ones at the bottom

09:45

such as tab

09:47

to cycle through snaps

09:49

and things like shift to force horizontal or vertical.

09:53

Those are also good keyboard shortcuts to be aware of.