You're not alone Kent, it is an issue, "addresed" somewhat by 2013's search function - but that's hardly perfect.

If you're coming from an AutoBAD world, and liked using Design Center, and would like something similar for Revit, then I can reccomend Kiwi Codes' Family Browser to help rationalise access to families both in and out of your project file.

It's frustrating, and long been requested as something to upgrade. It's not something that I can justify paying Kiwi Codes for, but I hope that Autodesk does address it in the future. Especially if its combined with real multi-monitor support so I can plug an extra monitor in just for the project browser.

Even if Autodesk was working on it, the earliest it could possible show up is 2014, which is still 2 months away. Hypothetically if they arent working on it, or if its not coming out this year, than the earliest you could see it is 14 months away. I dont work for Kiwi Codes, and im actually typically against using third party addins unless they bring game changing functionality, but... This is one time to put the principle of the argument on the shelf.

You are correct, you shouldnt HAVE to pay a third party to help make content management easier. But your productivity will suffer because of that principle. It was easily the best money weve spent in terms of revit productivity.

I'm not against using 3rd party add-ins in principal, it's just that there's a limit to the amount of software I can ask for (and expect the company to pay for), and I'm asking for a lot at the moment already.

Im totally in the same boat. But sit one of the principals down at your desk and show them how you select a family. Then show them how it works for xx dollars. lol

This is one of those things that has been a major PITA forever, and the Revit developers don't appear to be bothered to ever doing anything about it because they're much more interested in "big picture" development rather than little details that would make Revit more of a pleasure to use rather than a constant PITA (and that's putting it very politely imho).

The "Family Browser" add-on is kind of cool, but it's the sort of basic "feature" that should just be a part of the app, and not something we want to worry about upgrading every year (and how soon an upgraded version is available for the latest version of Revit when it comes out), etc. Also (and please someone correct me if I'm wrong!), I don't think it deals with the whole problem of nested components, which are indeed a freaking nightmare to deal with in Revit since all sorts of stuff gets mixed in and all out of (alphabetical) order.

The best thing we've come up with is to give heavily used nested components a one letter prefix. You can repeatedly type that letter when selecting a nested component, and it will cycle through the components with that letter prefix.

Example: All the types of trim for our window families are nested components. So, we name our trim, "t-trim type a", "t-trim type b", etc. Then, when selecting the nested trim for the window, I can type "t", and it will jump to the first nested trim type. I can type "t" again, and it will jump to the next one, etc.

That makes a sucky situation only 10% better, but that's better than nothing.

Im not even clear on which issue with Shared Nested components you are describing, as i have TONS of shared nested families in most of my content, and it all works fine. Sure, once it loads them they are a mess in the Revit Component button, but we literally train people not to use the component button at all, since the FB will check the project for the current definition of a family before it will reload it.


I have to ask, though... What does this have to do with loading content and searching for content? Im not asking to be a jerk, i literally am confused if we are talking about two seperate issues...

Totally agree that a family manager type of function should be included OOTB in Revit but it is not. How long do you have to wait and take a hit on your productivity that is gained by having an addon like FB? AutoDesk don't seem to be to motivated in providing this functionality OOTB. Maybe this year??? Who knows but it is the first thing I look for when the Alpha comes out each year lol.

With regards to your comments on how long the new version of FB will be released after RTM of Revit. 1 Day is the answer. We get through ADN the final shipping code 2 weeks before public release for final testing. (we have been working on Fb 2014 for the past couple of months). I then like to make sure nothing has actually changed the day after release and then it will be uploaded to our web site.

Autodesk ProjectBrowser timeline
2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013: Users request functionality
2014: Autodesk decides to act
2015: Autodesk starts to act
2016: Autodesk gets new ProjectBrowser functionality implemented. Performance is so bad it is dropped in alpha
2017: Performance issues addressed. Beta testers universally pan UX of new feature. Feature is shipped in Revit 2018 anyway.
2018, 2019, 2020: UI/UX features are massaged, cajoled, polished and otherwise marginally improved. Revit version 2021 sees a functional ProjectBrowser implementation.
All this assuming Autodesk doesn't go all mini me on Microsoft and spends the next 10 years trying to make the UI Formerly Known as Metro the UI for Revit.

Yeah, I'll use Phillip's stuff rather than wait for Autodesk to get ProjectBrowser right. I may not live that long, after all.

Gordon