Who works on New years Eave??

Unfortunately Me :(.

Due to a few customers reporting that after updating their Family Browser to the latest build, they had lost the text on the non selected tabs.  This was happening to just some computers that were using a slightly larger font size therefore the text would not display.

I have since build a new version that now fixes this issue by making the tabs slightly wider and that can be found in the downloads section.

Thank you for reporting this and have a fantastic New Year.

See you in 2012.

Merry Christmas

Well what a year it has been. We have had a huge amount of support from the Revit Community over the past year with Family Browser now starting to gain worldwide recognition. This looks to continue into 2012 and along with some new products that we are working on it looks as though next year is going to be a cracker for KiwiCodes.


From us at KiwiCodes we wish you a wonderful Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year.

New Update 2012.2.12.10 Posted

Sometimes it's the little things that count for people trialing Family Browser.  In this update we have taken the four main issues that our customers and testers have reported as being of concern to them.  They may seem small requests but we have knocked them off the wish list for this Christmas update.  They are:

1. Rotated Text on the tabs to read as per Revits vertical dims.
2. Fixed all the issues of Focus between Family Browser and the Revit drawing canvas.
3. Family Browser now does not write JPG images of the family thumbnails to the hard drive when not needed.  They are still written as per previous releases for custom thumbnail images.
4. Moved the Revit cancel command from mouse over Family to Family Browser click so that inserting a family from Family Browser now acts exactly like choosing a family and inserting from Revit itself.

The full downloads can be found from here or the patch to existing version FB 2012.2 here.

Enjoy and keep the comments and emails coming.

Cheers

Phillip

Tab Layouts

Over the last year we have received a few requests for more options on the layouts of tabs.

Currently the only option is to have the tabs arranged on the left or right hand side of Family Browser.  What are your thoughts about having the ability to have tabs on the top or bottom of the browser as shown below?  Would this be useful?  How would you expect it to handle multiple types in families?

I look forward to hearing you comments on this.

Phillip

Tabs with orientation Bottom

Enhanced Search Feature

Well it is that time of year again where we start to think about how we go about improving Family Browser for the next release.  Since the last release we have received allot of suggestions and enhancements that could be included.  The first one I would like to get more detailed feedback on is for an enhanced search function.

As you will be aware the existing search feature of Family Browser searches by Family Name and populates a search tab on Family Browser.  If you are unaware of this feature check out this video.

Now while this works really well and is very quick to find families by name we have had requests by a few that a more in depth search function would be use full at times.  My question for you is:

• What extra info would you like to search for?
• Would searching for family type names be of any use?
• What about some specific parameters and if so what ones would be use full?
• Would some sort of search filter be use full,  ie search by category, then by type and then by parameter?
• What about "and"  "or" search variables?

Along with your help we have the chance to create a rock star search function for Family Browser.

I look forward to your comments and suggestions.

Cheers

Phillip

Catch Up.

Hi All.

Well it has been a fair while since my last posting.  No we haven't fallen of the planet, but have been flat out Creating Awesome Revit API's for other customers.  We are now ready to begin thinking about our next release of Family Browser and also start working on a brand new Application for Revit that will be released in the first half of next year.

A big thank you goes out to fellow blogger, Dave Baldacchino who have recently blogged about Family Browser.  It is much appreciated.

Dave's Blog Here

Cheers

Phillip

Brand New App for the Revit Market - Door Factory

I would like to introduce you to RevitWorks, a new company specialising in providing Revit content.

I have been working with the guys at RevitWorks over the past few months, helping them develop some of their tools. They have a fresh approach to creating and using Revit families that, I think, offers real time saving benefits.

They currently have some great packages available on their website for working with Casework and Interior Joinery, Piping for Revit Architecture, 2d Fixings & Flashing families for your detailing, and more to come.

The one I have been working on, and really excited about, is the first ever Door Factory add-on for Revit. You will be able to create almost any door you want in seconds, on the fly, without ever going into the family editor. This is still in beta testing at the moment, but there is a video on their web site www.revitworks.co.nz that is worth having a look at.

Check them out.

Cheers

Phillip

New Family Insert Behaviour

With the recent update released for Family Browser 2012 we slightly changed the behaviour with the way Families are inserted into Revit from Family Browser:

1. With Family Browser pinned open focus will return to the Revit canvas as soon as you select a family.  There is now no need to click in the Revit canvas before seeing the family.
2. Moving your mouse over a family in Family Browser will now finish the currently active command in Revit and allow you to place a new family.
3. To swap a preselected family in Revit you need to hold down the "Ctrl" key when entering Family Browser.

I have uploaded a video to YouTube that explains this.

Cheers
Phillip

"My Favorites" Tab and Family Linking

As mentioned in my last post below we have released a new build of Family Browser that has a User defined "My Favorites" tab along with the ability to add links to one family in many tabs.

This has many advantages which include:

• The end user now has the ability to locate their personal favorite families in a prominent location without effecting other users Family Browser setup.
• As the families on the tab are created as a link to the original location of the family, if that family was updated by the BIM manager all linked family icons are updated to the latest family instantly.
• There is now no need to have duplicated families spread over multiple directory locations.

To see how this all works watch the below Video

New Build of Family Browser Avaliable for Revit 2012

We are pleased to announce a new build for Famiy Browser for Revit 2012:

New Features:

1. Addition of “My Favorites” Tab - Video coming soon
2. The ability to link one family to multiple tabs - Video coming soon

Enhancements/Fixes

1. When a Revit command is active and the user moves into Family Browser the current Revit command will finish and Family Browser will be ready to insert the new family.
2. Fixed an issue with Tabs not flipping on duel screens with the primary monitor on the right hand side
3. Fixed an issue with group selector showing when Family Browser was collapsed
4. Removed all hard coded paths, to allow for custom location of Family Browser on a shared network folder

The new version is now availble in the downloads and Current section on this blog.

Family Browser - 1 Year Old.



Family Browser ver 1

 Last week here at Kiwi Codes we celebrated 1 year since Family Browser ver 1 was released to the public.  Just for fun I uninstalled the latest version and reinstalled ver 1 to see how far Family Browser has come.

WOW.  I forgot just how basic it was.  As you can see from the screen grab on the left it lacked the following enhancements that have been added in the following year:

1. Significant UI enhancements. ie boarder less forms, expandable floating palette, right mouse click options to name a few.
2. The ability to insert families with multiple types and type catalogs.
3. Search function.
4. Catalog creator.
5. Icon creator.
6. Automatic start up on Revit start up

It has been a mind blowing year for us here at Kiwi Codes as we never thought Family Browser would have been the success that it has.  Thank you all for your support, comments and suggestions.  They all go towards providing a better product in the future.

Revit Family Browser - Search Function

In this video I would like to show the awesome power of Family Browser's search function to quickly filter through thousands of families in an instance to find the family that you are after.

We have made some slight modifications in a new build that is now available in the downloads section.  This includes:

1. A 1 sec delay in the processing of the search string, so that the searches are allot more fluent.
2. Grey italic text in the search text box more clearly show that there is a search function in Family Browser.

Watch and enjoy ;)

Phillip

Element Renumber 2012 - FREE

We are pleased to announce that we have upgraded our Element Renumber Tool to be compatible with Autodesk Revit 2012.  The best part - its totally FREE.

The installer can be downloaded from HERE.

Easily renumber Families, Viewports and Grids Etc.

Kiwi Codes becomes 50% Aussie

This is hard to believe but as of next Monday 50% of Kiwi Codes will reside in Australia.

Yep that’s right, Chris has taken up a BIM Managers job at “Mitier3” in Melbourne starting Monday 9th May. 

So to all you Aussie mates that have been at me to produce tools for the Australian market we now have someone on the ground.

Good luck to Chris in his new and challenging job.

Phillip

Family Type Catalog GUI Creator/Editor

With the release of Revit 2012 Autodesk introduced the ability to export from a Revit Family document a catalog "TXT" file that could then be copied into the correct location to be used when inserting families.  Although this was a good start we feel that it falls well short of the mark of what users actually need.

With the Autodesk way, the end user needs to:

1. Copy the txt file into the correct location.
2. Use a text editor like notepad or excel to edit/add/delete family types.
3. Can only be exported from a Family Document, not a project document.
4. Know the exact family parameter names and syntax of the text file for it to work.

Luckily Family Browser solves all of these issues in a very simple way.

1. Type catalogs created within Revit and the project environment.
2. No need to even load the family.
3. GUI for editing, adding and deleting parameters and types.
4. Family cleanup when catalog is created.
5. Inbuilt units converter.

If this all sounds far to good too be true check out the below video which show how simple this really is.

Keyboard shortcut to Family Browser 2012

In Family Browser 2012 we added a minor enhancement to toggle Family Browser on/off using a keyboard shortcut.

This might be a minor addition but use full all the same.  Watch this video to see how it works.

Cheers
Phillip

Family Browser 2012 - Now Released

I am pleased to announcee that Family Browser 2012 is now available for download from here.

For Family Browser 2012 we concentrated of four main areas:

1. AutoDesk Revit 2012 Compatible
2. Fixed errors that we received from user feedback
3. The addition of "Collections" which are similar to having multiple MasterText files as in Family Browser ver 3.  A tutorial video can be viewed here.
4. Better deployment options for Site License users.  A tutorial video can be viewed here.

There is no need to remove Family Browser 3 if you have it installed, it will work side by side ver 3.

Once again, thank you for all the support and comments/suggestions that you have provided us.  We still have a lot of ideas to implement in coming versions and look forward to making these available to you at a later date.

Cheers
Phillip

New Video Tutorials Posted

Well it has been awhile since my last post.

I intend to be a bit more regular in the coming weeks and months.

I have just uploaded six new video tutorials and more will be coming shortly.

Keep an eye out for another post in the next few hours with an announcement from us. ;)

Cheers
Phillip

What have we been up to?

It’s been a bit quiet around this neck of the woods this last month but be rest assured we have not been sitting around doing nothing. J

It seems that this is the time of year for software announcements and it looks as though Autodesk will be announcing something tomorrow.

We have been flat out this last month coding a brand new API for Revit for clients of ours that I’m sure will take the Revit world by storm.  It is another tool like Family Browser which for a BIM program like Revit, is amazing that it doesn’t exist in Revit.  I will post more info on this program in the coming weeks when our clients are about to release it.

As for Family Browser we will be working on a Revit 2012 version before it ships and hope to release a build that is compatible with it the day after we download the final Revit build.  This version will be able to run side by side the Version 3 Revit 2011 version.  I will keep you posted on this and any new features a little closer to the time. 

In the meantime, if you have some spare time leave a comment on this Autodesk blog on your thoughts of Family Browser.

Cheers

Phillip

Element Renumber - Now FREE

Today we have released our tool "Element Renumber" for Autodesk Revit 2011 to the public for free.

Quickly renumber any element in Revit, from windows, doors grids, viewports etc, or remove all duplicate Mark numbers from a category with a single click

Download the installer from  HERE and use this serial number to activate your free trial.

G060E-E909C-A3C55-2F590-C0901-000G0

Enjoy.

Family Browser Update and New Feature

After a very busy week since we released Family Browser ver 3 we have uploaded a new build that fixes some issues that a small percentage of users were reporting.  These issues were around the areas of:

• Trouble starting Family Browser from the Addins Tab on some systems.
• Some activation issues.
• Fixed error messages generated if you had a family open in Revit and Family Browser was trying to generate an icon for that family.
• Fixed issues around Renaming of groups and tabs.
• Fixed issues with creating "Type Catalogs" when the units were set to "Feet & fractional inches" and the "Suppress 0 feet" check box was selected.
• Fixed issue of inserting families if the name had an " in it.
• Other small fixes and enhancements.

If you have had a previous install of Family Browser ver 3, download the simple one click patcher from here.  Patcher File   (no need to go through registration), otherwise the full installation file can be found here. Full Download

New Feature

We are pleased to announce in this latest build an Icon Maker for Family Browser.  See below video for demonstration.

 
Let us know what you think?

WOW - What a week

WOW - What a week it has been is all I can say!!! 

We have a ton of people now trialling Family Browser along with order steadily coming in which is fantastic.  We are also receiving a huge amount of emails with comments, suggestions for future enhancements/functionality and of course the odd bug.

I would like to thank a few people for actively promoting/blogging about Family Browser.  We have never asked them to do it, and some of them I don't even know.

Daniel Hurtubise  -  Blog Here

Aaron Maller - Blog Here

Steve Stafford -  Blog Here

CAD Shack - Blog Here

RevitForum.org  -  Post Here

There could be more and I know of a couple more coming so thanks in advance to those people.

Keep the emails and comments coming.  We really appreciate them.

Family Browser ver 3 is now Available

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Family Browser version 3 from our downloads Page.


After extensive feedback from users we have added a huge range of features to this edition.  These include to name a few:

1.       UI enhancements, like mouseover  show/hide & left/right hand tabs

2.       Family Search function

3.       Drag and drop from Windows Explorer

4.       Extract Families from Revit Project onto Family Browser tab.

5.       Add Walls to Family Browser

6.       What we believe to be the World’s first UI for creating and editing Family Type Catalogues.

A new features video can be viewed below

A Trial Download can be found in our downloads section.  Please feel free to leave comments.

First Post - Welcome

Hi All.

Thank you for visiting my Blog.  This Blog is going to be mainly focused on our Revit 2011 Addin called Family Browser.  It will feature the latest news, downloads and tutorial videos all related to the latest version of Family Browser.  I also intend to comment on other interesting aspects of the Revit API along with samples and code.

Once again, thanks for stopping by.  Feel free to leave comments and suggestions on future articles etc. 

Very very soon there will be some exciting news ;), so keep posted.

Cheers

Phillip