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📁 Steal Like an Artist: pyRevit Secrets for a Quick Start
Jan 3, 2025
📁 Steal Like an Artist
In the programming world, the phrase "Steal Like an Artist" isn’t about plagiarism—it’s about learning, borrowing ideas, and building upon the knowledge of others.
You've probably heard the joke about programmers being better at google and copy-pasting code. It's true, but copying code is never enought. You need to know how to adapt it to your own needs.
pyRevit Folder Structure
As you know, pyRevit extensions are made of a simple folder structure. There is a folder for every button or panel in Revit's UI.
Want to add or remove tools? Copy or delete a folder. Voilà!
Here is pyRevit Extension's Anatomy:
💡 The left column is the bare minimum. Everything else? Just nice-to-haves for organization or extra functionality.
If you are new to pyRevit, check out this short video to learn how to create your own extension and understand the basics.
Build Toolbar Quick
pyRevit and its extensions are open-source, which means you've got access to source code of all add-ins.
And by exploring existing tools, you can build you own custom toolbar with 30-50 useful tools in no time. It's very common way to start with pyRevit.
This isn't done to claim sombody's work. It's a strategic step to create a proof of concept and introduce pyRevit to your team and the boss.
It's much easier to say "Look at this magic" and explain the potential of pyRevit and show that you cna modify everything.
It makes it clear that:
It's easy to start
It's possible to achieve
And most importantly - It's worth investing into.
So, let me show you where to find countless examples of pyRevit code so you can learn from existing code and impress your boss.
pyRevit Toolbar
Firstly, look at pyRevit toolbar. There are a lot of useful tools and I still find new tools to me from time to time.
Once you find a tool you like:
Use ALT + CLICK to open source folder of that Add-In
Copy .pushbutton folder
Paste into your own extension
Reload pyRevit and voila.
✅Achievement unlocked: Steal Like an Artist.
pyRevit Additional Extensions
Want More? Well, check out additional extensions in pyRevit.
Go to pyRevit -> Extensions Manager.
This will open up this menu to install even more pyRevit extensions made by other pyRevit Hackers. And everything is also 100% Open-Source.
Isn't it amazing?
EF-Tools extension alone has more than 70 tools, and I grant you the permission to do anything you want with my code.
So don't feel any guilt for reusing my tools. I want you to!
GitHub
Do you want to open Pandora's Box of pyRevit extensions, where you can get hundreds or even thosands more?
Are you ready?
Go to GitHub
Search for 'pyRevit' (or click here)
Explore 250+ repos that represent extensions
Can you imagine thousands more pyRevit Add-ins 🤯?
Let's do a quick math. Let's say out of everything we find only 15% are going to be good.
260 x 0.15 = 39 Extensions
And then let's say you find 3 tools in each one of them worth copying.
39 x 3 = 117 Amazing Tools
That's just very conservative numbers. In reality some of you are going to find even more tools or less. Depending on the discipline and what kind of works you do.
But it should be clear that there are a lot of useful tools you can learn from and even reuse parts of them.
Still not convinced that pyRevit is the best add-in for Revit?
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