Revit Architecture Beginner’s Guide

Comments13

• willard79Mon May 2, 2011 1:51 pmI hate wikihelp. It may be fine for newbies but it is rubbish for someone who wants to delve deeper for a specific topic.
  Bring back the damn user guide for crying out load.
• pattygaleWed May 4, 2011 12:07 pmThank you for your comment. We’re always looking for ways to improve, and we want to hear what works for you and what doesn’t.
  
  In fact, the entire Revit User’s Guide is provided as part of the WikiHelp, so all of that content is still available to you. http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Revit/enu/2012/Help/Revit_User's_Guide
  
  In addition, the WikiHelp search mechanism understands Autodesk terminology, so results are tailored and relevant to your search. If you have not yet tried the WikiHelp search, it might be one way to find the information you’re looking for.
  
  To further improve search results, we encourage users to add tags to topics. And you can rate topics to help us understand whether they provide the desired information (with a Thumbs Up) or need more work (with a Thumbs Down). You can also add comments to pages that need work to indicate how they can be improved. The more specific you are, the better chance that Autodesk or the WikiHelp Community will add the content you are looking for.
  
  The WikiHelp is a new medium for us on the Revit User Assistance Team and we’re still learning how best to organize the information, but our hope is that it will become a place where Revit users can connect to help one another. Is the Revit User’s Guide missing an important procedure or concept? Create a stub page (in the guide or the Community area) and indicate the kind of information you’re looking for. Autodesk team members or other Revit users can step in to help fill in the gaps. You can also check the Revit Community pages to see the information being added by Autodesk team members, industry experts, and your Revit peers.
  http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Revit/enu/Community
  
  We hope you’ll give the new Revit WikiHelp a chance to prove its value, and we look forward to the whole Revit community participating, improving this repository of information and helping each other to become more productive with Revit.
  
  -- Patty Gale, Autodesk Revit User Experience Team
• simon.whitbreadMon Jul 25, 2011 2:57 pmWhile I'm not as passionate about wikihelp as willard79, it sure takes some getting used to. Maybe it is because I like a book format, especially now in pdf and epub as I can carry the majority of my publications around on an iPad, in most cases its lighter than the original (especially the 2011 RME User Guide @ over 2100 pages - try carrying that around regularly on a bicycle!).
  
  One way to break yourself into the whole 'online' help experience is to actually use it 'offline'.
  
  There is a description of 'how to' at:
  
  http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Revit/enu/2012/Help/Revit_User's_Guide/0005-Introduc5/0018-User_Int18/0047-Online_H47
• mjncadWed Aug 10, 2011 5:44 pmI agree with Willard79 about Wikihelp being a PITA! I just want the old step by step tutorials back. Go take a lesson from the Inventor developers as I like their tutorials in Inventor 2011. I hope they haven't gone the Wikihelp route in Inventor 2012.
  
  Now I've got to get another monitor just for all the blasted help windows that pop up using Wikihelp.
  
  
  GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
• mjncadWed Aug 10, 2011 5:45 pmWikihelp is useless.
• Darren.GoundryTue Aug 23, 2011 1:37 pmEveryone is correct with how useless Wikihelp is. There is nothing good that can be said about it over the old users guide
• snoopy7788Mon Sep 5, 2011 10:27 pmI am also cannot get wikihelp, I am not sure our computer problems or not use to with this.... still looking for revit 2012 user guide.... still crying....
• mika.niklanderWed Sep 14, 2011 5:14 amUser Guide in PDF format would be nice! Though, maybe this is all about getting used to use this new format... Let's see how this works out...
  MiNi
• pattygaleWed Sep 14, 2011 5:58 am@mika.niklander -- Yes, WikiHelp does present the same information in a new format. It might take a bit of getting used to, but we hope that, overall, it is an improvement over the old PDFs and static help. With the WikiHelp, you can give topics a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down, add tags, add comments, and even edit the content directly if you see errors or ways to improve the information provided. And the writing team can more easily update the help, providing the latest and greatest information right away, instead of just once per year, as we used to do.
  By all means, please let us know whether the WikiHelp meets your needs, and whether you have any issues or challenges along the way. We are always looking for ways to improve our User Assistance, and we really want your feedback.
  -- Patty Gale, Autodesk User Experience Team
• timmearigMon Sep 19, 2011 1:08 pmIs there a way to add "Resources" to the Revit opening splash page, "recent files"? I'd like to place a couple of the wiki-help videos there for training purposes.
• pattygaleMon Oct 24, 2011 10:22 am@timmearig: No, at this time, there is no easy way to add training videos to the Recent Files page.
  For feature/functionality wishlist items like this, please submit your requests using this form.
  Then it's sure to get into the right hands and be tracked properly.
  
  -- Patty Gale, Autodesk Revit User Experience Team
• jlistonFri Feb 24, 2012 6:49 amI am teaching myself Revit after years of using Autocad and ACA. Here is my input.
  
  1. when doing a search for symbolic lines and how to use them, I received 53 references with the words symbol and line highlighted which were no help. I received 7 references with the word symbolic and line in them. 1 actually had a little information in the direction I wanted to go. Search engine needs improvement.
  
  2. When looking up levels I drilled down to where the "Understanding Revit terms" section was located. There were 3 different examples. 1 each for Architectural, Structural, and Mechanical. The Architectural example was a shaded image of a house on one side showing a shaded cut plane and a floor plan on the other. The structural example showed a section through an industrial building with levels,height elevations and a column grid system. The next example was for Mechanical showing the industrial building section as a background with the mech. info on top of it. The levels and height elevations were shown. Trying to relate the different examples was difficult with the architectural be totally different from the structural and mechanical. Examples need to be consistent.
  
  3. Adding bookmarks to my browser is becoming insane. I have so many bookmarks I cannot remember what they all go to. In a PDF file I can bookmark and give names that make sense to me. I can break up the PDF file into smaller areas and just look in the area I want to look in. I do not have to drill all over the place to find information.
  
  4. The ribbon help could be improved. Is it possible to have a image of the ribbon where you can hover your mouse over a command and it gives you a little help box, and if you click on that command it takes you to the page that explains the command. If there is a different ribbon that comes up repeat the procedure. That way you could work on you drawing and find help the same way that you would look for commands in the ribbons.
  
  Just some quick thought.
  
  Joe
• pattygaleFri Feb 24, 2012 9:40 amJoe, thanks very much for this feedback. This is exactly the sort of information we need to receive from users to understand your needs and to continually improve both the help content and the way we deliver it.
  
  1. Search engine needs improvement: Agreed. In fact, our search engine team is continually working to improve the way it works, and as those improvements become ready, they are implemented on the wiki immediately. So please don’t give up on Search. Keep trying it, and hopefully you will see improved results.
  
  In addition, the User Assistance team is working to improve the search keywords incorporated into each help topic to give better search results. One way that you can help is to tag topics with the search terms you would use to locate that information. Tagging with industry terms and your synonyms will help to improve the search results for all Revit users.
  
  2. Examples need to be consistent: Point well taken. In the past, the online help for each Revit product was developed by different writers, each using a slightly different approach. Now we are working together as more of an integrated team, and this will help the User Assistance team to achieve the sort of consistency you are looking for in future editions of the online help. Please stay tuned.
  
  3. Bookmarks: I’ll take it as a good sign that you want to keep track of your favorite help topics to return to later. Most browsers allow you to rename bookmarks and organize them into folders. But if your browser does not provide this functionality, perhaps you can use the Print feature to generate your own PDFs. At the top of each WikiHelp page, click Print > Add to print queue. You can add many pages to the print queue and then reorder the pages as desired before saving all of them to a PDF. In this way, you can design your own “books” that cover topics of particular interest to you.
  
  4. Ribbon help: Are you familiar with our tooltips and F1 help links? When working in Revit, move your mouse over a ribbon command: a tooltip (small help box) displays a brief description of the command. Leave the mouse there for another moment, and more information about the command displays. In many cases, an image or mini-video also displays as part of the tooltip. With the tooltip displayed, press F1 to go directly to a context-sensitive help topic for that command. Please try this and let me know what you think. Does it meet your needs?
  
  Please keep the feedback coming. We look forward to hearing from you in your Revit adventures.
  
  -- Patty Gale, Autodesk Revit User Experience Team