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My pyRevit Template for Revit API: A Step-by-Step Guide [EP. 5/10]

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This lesson focuses on understanding the anatomy of PyRevit scripts and preparing reusable Revit templates to streamline future tool development, covering essential script elements, metadata tags, and best practices for efficient coding.

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hi everybody Welcome to the fifth lesson

of learn ra API course in this lesson

we're going to talk about pyate script

anatomy and we're going to prepare P

Revit templates for you so you can use

them in all your future tools and you

never have to start with the blank page

and also to save time during this lesson

we will also start with my existing

templates and I will break them down

step by step because in the end of the

day you probably will start with them

anyway and then slowly you will adjust

them to your own needs but I will also

mention in the end P developers

documentation where you can find even

more information now without further Ado

let's actually jump straight into the

code and I'm going to explain it well in

ravit open the extension that you

created in the previous lessons and then

you're going to find template paray with

minimum this are the two templates I'm

going to start with the minimum version

because this one is an Overkill it also

has a ton of comments because it's it

was made for educational purpose but

this one is actually what I use all

right and in this template the first

line is utf8 encoding and in Iron python

we have to specifically declare that we

want to use d8 encoding CU for example

if you would use uh some kind of German

Russian or non-standard asky characters

and you don't have this line right here

you'll notice that it's highlighted if

you're going to hover over it's going to

say that non asking character U is in

the file and it's going to cause an

error and it's also going to give you a

very weird error message which is not

very easy to debug I think so just to

avoid this always use this utf8 encoding

even if you're not using Russian German

or whatever characters you think of

then the next is the title and it's just

the name of the button that you're going

to see in ravit UI there's also a way to

define different names for different

ravit languages but I'm going to show it

later then the dock is the description

that you're going to see in ravit when

you're going to hover over your buttons

for example when I hover over this

you'll see there's a version date

description how to to- do last updates

and auor and I really like to put all of

this information because it's going to

help your users understand in short what

what is this button doing how to

actually use it and how to is a very

important part cuz often times you will

have scripts where you're going to

describe first select walls then click

on the button select W type and then

this happens and without that your users

might not understand how to use it

correctly also depends on what kind of

tools you make last update also nice so

you can keep track of what kind of

changes did you make and what you want

to also do in the future now the next is

import and in here we just put our most

used import so we don't have to write it

over and over and in pretty much every

every tool that you're going to make

you're going to write from Autodesk

gravy DB import something we probably

need to import it in every single script

and also don't bother to importing only

the classes that you're actually going

to use cuz even though people say yes

it's going to execute faster you will

never notice this difference because we

talk about fraction of a fraction of a

second so just import everything and don't

don't

care however there are also other name

spaces for other disciplines example if

I'm going to write Auto disk gravy DB

notice there structure architecture

steel event analysis electrical there is

also lighting mechanical and so on so on

so on and if you work in one of these

disciplines there's a good chance that

you would need to import something from

the structure like for example

structural type is very common when you

create families maybe you want to import

something from Autodesk rdb architecture

cuz I know there are classes like room

there is stairs there is railings and

all of this if you often use these

classes then it makes sense but if not

don't have to make it part of your

template just know that there are this

name spaces from where more classes come

then this one is actually very important

and I highly recommend you to keep it in

all your templates because in Revit API

documentation you will often see that we

need arguments which is I list or I

collection and this has mean that we

need to provide a typed list and this is

how we get it we get it from system

collection generic import list and the

difference is that if we going to create

for example list of element IDs in

Python but also in the same python list

we can add the integer we can add our

string we can add maybe another list

with numbers and so

on but what type list do is you can

Define element IDs I need you to create

a list where only element ID types can

be inside then this is how you would

create an empty list and if you would

have your element IDs you could just

take it and provide it here inside like

this or you can use add method if you're

for example in full loop and you want to

add one by one by one for example this

one will add one element okay this is

just an example just leave it here

because often times you would have to

use it then there are variables there

are three common variables that you need

you need a doc UI do and app this one

stands for the document and it

represents your project you would need

it whenever you want to make changes in

your project when you want to get

elements out of your project or

something related to this specific

project your ID do is all about ravit UI

and for example this is common to use

when you want to prompt user to select

something or get user selection or

something related to the user interface

lastly application relates to the ravit

application itself this is from where

you can get ravit year version maybe

background color and maybe where is the

path to the shared parameter file and

this kind of application related

parameters but also I highly recommend

you to set the type hinting here and you

can do this in Python like this you make

a comment with type and then you define

the class the reason you do that because

when you're going to use this variable

you definitely want to have some kind of

auto complete for example if I'm going

to write active I can see there's active

view if I want to for example maybe load

a family then I can use it click on

control Q in pie charm and see some

documentation how it works but if you're

going to remove this and you're going to

try to for example doc active view it's

not going to give you any suggestions

because py charm doesn't know what it is

because py charm doesn't know what is

this special variable uncore ravit but

py RIT and ravit python show they know

what it is therefore definitely ly leave

this kind of type hinting here this one is

document then this one is the class of

UI document and this one is the type of

application you'll also notice this one

highlighted this is because we not

reference this classes cuz we have to

import them and one comes from

Autodesk ravit UI import UI document and

other comes from Autodesk RIT

I think application Services import

application yeah something like this

you'll have to import them as well and

listen this one you don't really need

because you don't use Ab that often I

just like to have it here but U ID do if

you want to have type hinting definitely

import it if you don't want to type

hinting then you can remove it but I

would just leave it cuz for beginners

it's amazing now then you'll notice that

I have some blocks like functions and

Main and these are the blocks that I

personally use I haven't seen any other

programmers use these kind of blocks

because normally majority of people they

create a comment write their variables

and maybe they make some

dashes I also use this once in a while

but I also use the emojis then to make

emojis you click on the start key which

makes this kind of start appear and

together with a DOT and then you're

going to find a various emojis you can

choose from but if you want to make

these blocks this is called ask Art and

you need a special plugin and it's both

available in pie charm and in Visual

Studio code person personally I find

them very useful on large scripts but on

the smaller ones they actually take

quite a lot of space but if you want to

learn how to do them click here on the

file then scroll down to the

settings and then we need to open

plugins right here in marketpl look for

the plugin called figlet it looks like

this and just click on install it I

already installed it and you can see in

there there's like preview of what it

is now to use it in py charm we would

create a comment like this

I'll write here something like new

comment select this text and then you

have to hold alt and click on insert key

you'll see this menu and you can select

asky art then you would also have to

define the font because you will notice

that there are a lot of different fonts

for this asky art the one that I use you

would have to click on more and then

scroll here until we can see here somewhere

Kelvin and right there is Kelvin s this

is the phone that I use for these

special blocks I haven't seen anyone

except me using it and if you like them

you're welcome to use it as well but if

not regular comment is fine it's just

whatever is your

preference and yeah that's pretty much

it about minimum template we have our

name and description we have the most

common Imports we use and we keep here

the variables that we need for ravit API

I highly recommend you to use the type

hinting for the document and maybe UI

document for the application you don't

need the type hinting and then if you

work in large scripts consider making

functions Main and so on so you can kind

of separate your code visually with

these blocks listen this template is

going to be more than enough for

majority of you and just adjust it to

your old needs but also it's really good

to know that pyate provides a few meta

attacks that you might be interested in

in this example you can see all about

them in there you can see you can

provide the author you can provide help

URL and let's actually open this anatomy

of iron python I showed you earlier I'm

going to put it here on the side and

listen I'm going to scroll through and

just go through the very quick help URL

is really useful because you can hover

over any button click on F1 and it's

going to open whatever URL or path to a

special file for example if you have a

button and you have a PDF on how to use

special script and users can hover click

on F1 and they going to open either the

PDF or YouTube video that you provide

here then the next one is highlight and

if you scroll here you'll see that we

can either highlight elements as new or

updated I just going to add this kind of

orange dot in the corner and when you

hover over you're also going to see in

the tool see whether it's new or updated

it might be good to direct a little bit

more attention to new buttons then the

next one we can limit our minimum and

maximum Revit version and it's useful

when we have Revit API limitations for

example we couldn't create ceilings

before Revit 2022 I know it sounds

stupid but that was the case therefore

we could Define here that the minimum

version is 2022 and the maximum is 2025

or maybe we just remove it all together

so we allow all versions after that this

way the button is going to be shown in

22 and higher versions and in ravy 2021

it's not going to be shown at

all then we have context and this is

something special uh I can see it right

here as well context and it also has its

own kind of bundle context with the

description this context allows you to

set some criteria what should happen

before your button can be executed let

me show you what it means we're just

Rit for example let's open this push button

button

let's open the script and somewhere here

we're going to create

context I'm going to write selection

because you can see it's in here

selection you also notice that all of

the syntax in in the yaml format and

this is for the bundle that yaml file

I'm going to explain it in just a second

let me just explain the context first so

I put here selection which is one of the

special kind of keywords and then in

ravit I'm going to reload my P RIT so

all the changes happen to this

button and then have a look when I'm

going to go here you can see push button

is grayed out and I cannot really click

on it no matter how hard I try but if

for example I'm going to select a wall

and go back there now I can click on

this button so with this selection you

can Define what kind of elements have to

be selected if anything have to be

selected maybe you have to be on a

special view but and you can read more

about it in the bundle context you go to developers

developers

documentation let me make it bigger then

you scroll down and right here is the bundle

bundle

context so inside you can see you can

provide some category you can provide

multiple categories you can provide

selection zero do here you can provide

what kind of document it's made for is

it project workshare Cloud family what

kind of active view you need to provide

active drafting view plan sheet whatever

you want and then there's also Advanced

one where you can combine any all and so

on and you can see that all the syntax

is actually made for bundle. yaml file

to use that going to come to wherever

your button is placed I we need to

create a new file right here

I'm going to click on new then let's

create some kind of text document I'm

going to write bundle. yaml just make

sure you change the file format and if

you don't see this click here on The

View show and you can show the file name

extensions to change it inside I'm just

going to drop it like it is and click on

Save also keep in mind that in here you

can provide more than just the context

you can also put your the name of the

button the description of the button and

it might be useful only if you want to

provide it in multiple languages but but

honestly I never use it myself for

example here when I click on bundle

metadata you can see here's an example

and this is what we could add inside

here's how would add here a title or

maybe title in multiple language the

description the highlight and so on so

on so on you can add much more than just

the context but honestly I never use the

bundle that yaml file and I don't

recommend to any beginners because I

find it much nicer if you have all the

meta taxs right here example in this

file you have them all here this is very

quick and easy to find and change change

them if you need to but with bundle.

yaml you have to come here and open another

another

file now context all right also before

we're going to go further remove context

from the file because now we have it in

the file and in the bundle we just want

to have it in the

bundle now we're going to go to pyit and

reload it and while it's reloading let's

have a look what did we set we said that

it has to be active floor plan and we

have to have selection either walls or

floors we're going to see if it works now

now

now I actually got some kind of error

I'm not sure why it

happens but honestly I never use the

bundle that yaml file for my scripts

because I don't like separate this meta

tax from the script and also sometimes

you're going to get some kind of Errors

if you're going to misspell it like I

show you right now errors reading

metadata file I also may be doing it

wrong but honestly I don't recommend it

to any beginners yes you can limit the

button access depending on what's

selected but I find it so much better if

users click on the button and if they

don't have anything selected I just make

a kind of pop-up menu saying hey you

have to select the wall to do X Y and Z

or maybe if they don't have anything

selected I'm just going to prompt them

to select something and write hey select

walls now instead of just disabling the

button and they don't know why it's

disabled how to activate it because they

cannot really even hover over it as you

can see in here I hover over it okay I

get the description but it's really

confusing to see grade out buttons and

users just kind of think that okay

probably button is disabled or whatever

therefore I don't really recommend to

use context I don't really recommend

using bundle. yaml files but you welcome

to use them if you see value in

them all right and now you have your

templates and you know about PIR meta

attacks and that they provide you

additional functionality now you're

ready to create your first ravit addin

using ravit API and that's exactly what

I will teach you in the next lesson I'll

keep that example somewhat intermediate

so we can create something more fun and

more useful and then in the next modules

of this course I'll break down all ravit

API Concepts one by one so you can learn

them without feeling overwhelmed and I

will first focus on the theory and then

I'm going to provide you how to apply

this theory in practice so I wish you

happy coding and I will see you in the

next lesson where we're going to create

a really cool tool together see you there

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YouTube Transcript:My pyRevit Template for Revit API: A Step-by-Step Guide [EP. 5/10]