From the course: Revit 2019: Essential Training for Architecture (Metric)

Understanding context ribbons - Revit Architecture Tutorial

From the course: Revit 2019: Essential Training for Architecture (Metric)

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Understanding context ribbons

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- [Instructor] The Revit user interface is very context sensitive so in this video I want to talk about a couple areas that you want to always pay attention to because they will change frequently depending on what it is you might be doing at any given moment. The first area that I want to focus on is context ribbon tabs. In order to illustrate this I'm going to click over here on the modify tab. Now if you look at the modify tab, make note of the various panels that are there. At the far left we have select, then properties, clipboard, geometry, modify, view, measure and create. So just kind of make a mental note of the way that modify tab looks and then what I'd like you to do is kind of move your mouse into the model area somewhere and select something. So I'm going to select this roof element right here. Now notice that the modify tab changes to a green tinted color. It adds the word roofs at the end, which is the category of the object I have selected, and even though the select through create panels stayed exactly the same, notice that we now have a mode panel that appeared next to that, to the right, that has a single button called edit footprint. Now I'm going to click the modify tool to de-select that object and I'm going to select something else. Like down here toward the bottom on the right hand side, there's a wall right here, when I select it, again look at the ribbon. It now says modify walls, which is again that selected category, and we've got both the mode panel and the modify wall panel with several buttons available. Now you can do this with as many different elements as you like and that right hand portion of the ribbon tab will keep changing to reflect the context of the elements you have selected. Here it is with a window. Here it is with a door. Here it is with this topography element right here. And I'll just click an empty space or you can click the modify tool to de-select everything. Okay, so that's the modify tab of the ribbon and how it responds to selection. But you'll also see that modify tab of the ribbon change when you execute commands. So if I go back to the architecture tab and click the wall command watch what will happen. That actually takes me over to the modify tab. Now this confuses new users a lot sometimes, is they clicked on architecture and they click a button and all of a sudden they're looking at a different tab. This is exactly what's suppose to happen. We're over here on the modify tab and now you're going to notice a little bit more has changed in the interface. We still get the green tinted tab but now it says modify place wall, instead of modify walls. Subtle difference but it's the difference between whether we're editing an existing wall or creating a new one. Also notice that next to the create panel we now have a draw panel. And that draw panel has lots of different draw shapes. These are the different shapes of walls that we can create. Now the other part of the interface that changed is below the ribbon going all the way across the screen. This is the options bar, and it is populated with several different options that are available to us when we run the wall command. Now the options bar is completely context sensitive, so if I click the modify tool and I click a completely different command, like the door command, notice that the options bar still appears but it's empty. There are no options for the door command on the options bar, however there is a mode panel on the modify tab and we do have a couple buttons there. Now if you want to click a few more commands and take a look. Here's the column command, I do get some options on the options bar and I also get some options on the modify ribbon. And I'll click the modify tool to cancel. You can experiment by clicking a few other commands but you don't actually have to draw anything. The options bar will react when you're creating new elements but it will also sometimes give you options when you select things, so just be on the lookout for that. Here's a group, for example, and notice that there's an activate dimensions button on the options bar, but when I click a roof, I don't get anything there. So the key is to just make sure you pay attention to both the modify ribbon and the options bar because sometimes whatever it is you're trying to do, the option that you need, occurs in one of those two locations. So that's where you want to be paying attention to so that you can efficiently make the modifications that are required as you work through the software.

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