Presets. special build for feedback

Packages
1

We are experimenting with an option for saving graph presets. This prototype functionality will take the current value of a selection of nodes and save them as a preset state that you can restore from the states menu. We’d like to get feedback on this work, see what is missing, and if this functionality would be useful to your workflows.
This build should work on both standalone and Revit 2015. To try it out, you will need to uninstall any other pre-release or 0.8x builds. This build can be installed side-by-side 0.7.5.
You can create new preset states from the edit->states menu or by selecting some nodes and right clicking the canvas and selecting "Create State from Selection”, or by pressing Control+T. You can select any type of node for your states, but only input nodes will have much use, for example: number, string, code blocks, selection nodes, and sliders.
You can restore a saved state from edit->states->restore state, this will set all the nodes in that state to the saved values. If some node in the state is no longer present in the graph (ie. if it has been deleted), all other nodes in the state will be set.
You can delete a state from edit->states->delete state, this will simply remove a state from the possible states you can restore the graph to.
The states are saved into your .dyn file when the graph is saved, so if you want to keep your states in another session or share them, make sure to save the.dyn file after creating them.

!!Please do not open/save any critical files with this build without a backup!!
If you delete a node that is part of a preset state, there is no way to re-associate a node with the state. This means that whatever information that node contained, in each state, will be lost!!
There is currently no way to modify or edit states!
download installer here

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Screen Shot 2015-04-08 at 3.42.13 PM

3

Very interesting idea! It’s sort of like a soft save for let’s say design iterations. It would definitely benefit from ability to add or remove nodes from the state. Is there a state manager? Something accessible a little faster than bunch of drop downs?

Very interesting. :slight_smile:

4

Indeed - very interesting. This can easily be applied to a lot of different workflows. I think it would be useful to be able to export and import states so as to be able to edit them in an external app like Excel (e.g. for rapidly creating large numbers of variations) - a bit like family type catalogues.

I am curious, though - could this tool also help in applying the same workflow to different parts of the model, e.g. paneling various surfaces in the model based on different settings? Currently we have to make Dynamo forget which elements a graph was run on previously by disconnecting and rewiring nodes that make stuff.

6

Hello!

Nice idea!

IIlay, yes, this feature has some simular points in Dyno. But goals are different ))

7

Hi,

@Konrad, currently no state manager, we’re thinking of UI around editing states like that. I agree the dropdown get a bit cumbersome when wanting to switch quickly.

Thank you for the feedback.

 

@Andreas

Exporting/importing of states is an interesting idea. Do you think being able to interact with the states programmatically (through the graph perhaps) would be useful?

You can definitely save revit selection nodes into the states, I have not tested extensively the behavior with live runner though.

 

thanks for all feedback so far