Thursday, April 30, 2009

Dept. of Moved Cheese: Orient > By Plane

In Revit 2009 the View Cube and Steering Wheel were added to our "tool chest". After all this time I admit that I still barely use the Steering Wheel. I also tend to forget about the View Cube because I'm so used to using the Shift key combined with the mouse scroll wheel button to orbit. However, I definitely use the View Cube for the view Orientation options because I really like the view separation in the Orient to View tools.

Even though they added the "Cube and Wheel" to Revit 2009 it still had the View menu which offered us the following menu items, including the topic of this post, Orient > By Plane.


They also added this to the Steering Wheel, calling it "Orient to a Plane", but not to the View Cube. Confused? Me too, add to both maybe, but just the Steering Wheel? Okay?? I'm just as likely to want to have access to the tool via the View Cube because it's already visible and I have to turn on the Steering Wheel to access it there.


In 2010 they've got a View Ribbon tab but the view orientation options are gone, my cheese wasn't "moved" it was "eaten". My first instinct was that I'd find it on the View tab. Then I thought it might be on the Home tab since the Work Plane panel is there for Set and Show Work Plane, Reference Plane and Line etc. Nope the cheese is just gone...

I also thought maybe I'd find them on the new Navigation Bar which if I could just remember is there I'd use more too! But no, not there either!


I'm still not sure that this "sense of loss" or "sadness" is borne of knowing where my "cheese" was and not finding it there or that it is because I don't find it where my instincts tell me it ought to be? My instincts are either wrong or strongly biased by what I've been doing in Revit for a long time now.

I see some logic for putting it on the navigation tools but I really don't understand why it isn't on the View Cube too. I'd like a 3D Orientation panel on the View Ribbon that offers all the "old" tools from the View menu show earlier. This way they'd be discoverable on the Ribbon and we could have Keyboard Shortcuts for them again too.

I miss my "cheese"!

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