Dynamo Player Alternatives

I recently learned of the Revit addin Orkestra and that it had a few free features you can try without a subscription, one being a really sweet dynamo player which allows you to have multiple workspaces (directories) and create Playlists or basically groups of scripts that you may use together often. I LOVE this.

But it appears that you can only run the scripts, with no inputs or outputs.

I was wondering if there are any other dynamo players out there that anyone knows about for an alternative to the default player that comes with Dynamo?

Thanks!

But it appears that you can only run the scripts, with no inputs or outputs.

I think the assumption is you use a Data Shapes UI rather than dropdowns in the player.

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Hello Marcus,

Like Hamish says i also changed all my scripts to run with datashapes, but there are plugins that allow to give inputs.

You can try out this plugin for free and also use the light version for free i think.

Deploy & Update Dynamo scripts as Revit buttons REMOTELY – RELEASE NonicaTab PRO v3.0 :exclamation: - Revit - Dynamo (dynamobim.com)

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@Hamish ,

Ah, to be used with Data Shapes makes sense, I have been creating all our scripts without custom packages, just using python to avoid our scripts breaking as often. Ironically hearing of Orkestra’s features to remedy this is why I took a look at it initially but 'tis not in the budget at the moment.

@gerhard.p ,
Thanks for the recommendation I will take a look

Hi @Hamish

We’ve actually been working on enhancements to the original Dynamo Player that we’re currently testing in the Revit Preview. One of the big features we added is the ability to manage graphs across multiple folders, and switch between folders easily.

If you want to play around with the updated Player and access the documentation of all of the proposed changes, you can sign up for access here: https://feedback.autodesk.com/key/LHMJFVHGJK085G2M

If you have any questions about navigating the feedback site or finding the content related to Player, feel free to DM me.

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Datashapes is a nice alternate if don’t want to spend the extra money. If you set things up right, you can use one of the play buttons right on the Dynamo Player list and then your custom UI will pop right up. The abilities to setup any drop-down list and feed in project specific information are also big pluses as well. The downside is that you have to wait for the Datashapes UI to pop up every single time you run the script. On top of that, all of your inputs from the previous run will also be refreshed to default every time the UI loads. This can be a real deal breaker for automated workflows that require any amount of inputs and lots of consecutive runs. Sometimes all you may want to do is enter your inputs and press play on several of the same type of sheet or view. That being stated, there is one other alternative to the Dynamo Player that has not yet been recognized on this form. It can be more robust than Datashapes and the interface does not have to be reloaded every time you press play. Not to mention that most users of Dynamo already have this software installed. Now in all fairness, many may consider this version of the player to be an absolute abomination; thier concerns are duly warranted. So for those of you out there who are still interested, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

May i present to you the Excel Version of the Dynamo Player!

Just like Datashapes, you can press play on a script in the Dynamo Player list and presto! The excel UI will pop right up. This is all possible because of the options that are enabled on the excel import and export nodes that are right OOTB.

So after vomiting at the thought, one may ask: what does using an excel interface allow me to do? If you set up a template, well - almost anything.

You want drop-down lists? Just set them up with some Data Validation.

Want access to Revit or other application Inputs? Just export the information into the right cell ranges.

With a bit of formatting, you can even make it look quite nice.

The trick is in managing the logic that is required to make it all function properly. You should probably expect to press play on the Dynamo Player twice during your first run. Once to load the excel UI and again after changing some of the cells that the Dynamo graph can be set up to read and react to.

If you set up an excel template on your server so that multiple users can use it, Dynamo can be set up to make a copy of that template and then use that copy instead. Just make sure to have dynamo look for the copy (that can be automatically saved in a predictible project based location) first before making a new one. A Boolian input for something like ‘Use Excel Inputs’ may be useful as well.

One of the other big advantages is that excel can do many of the computations (that would have been left to dynamo) quite instantly.

It just takes a bit of setup… and probably several passthrough nodes (from Clockwork). All is this may obviously be overkill for many applications. However, some workflows demand this kind of solution.