Dynamo deletes previously placed elements after each run – workaround

If you need to iteratively place multiple Revit elements with Dynamo, like these stadium chairs, then you are in trouble. The problem comes from element binding – a Dynamo feature which preserves the link between DesignScript and Revit elements during the current Dynamo session. This is how Dynamo works by design, preventing your model from an avalanche of element duplicates, created in ‘Auto’ mode:

Either you run the graph in ‘Auto’ mode (like in the figure above), or re-run the graph manually, Dynamo places new elements while removing previously created ones. This kind of behaviour sounds pretty logical and straightforward – look what you’ll get if there’s no element binding at all (using one of the workarounds):  

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Revit 2018.1 update comes with enhanced Dynamo Player

Good news, everyone! Revit 2018.1 update is now available for download from the Autodesk Account portal. It comes with some cool new features (see this article at Autodesk blogs for the full info), including enhancements to Dynamo Player. Now it finally supports changing input values directly through the Player UI, which is super handy:

As you can see, there may be plenty of inputs that could be changed without even launching Dynamo. But note that there are still some limitations:

• Code blocks as input strings are not  supported – if you prefer to write text inputs in code block, using quotes, you’ll need to rebuild these Dynamo graphs (swap Code Blocks with Strings) to use with Player;
• Custom nodes as inputs are not supported – they are not shown in the Player UI;
• Frozen nodes will be shown as changeable inputs, while they’re not used in the script logic.

Anyway, this is a cool update, and I’m sure that these subtle issues would be fixed in the near future. And by the way, here is the quote from Dynamo community addressing these issues:

We will look into the frozen node and address them in the future.
For the Code Blocks it’s a little more tricky but doable if there is a strong request from the community.
For the custom nodes it would be really nice indeed to have that.
The way I see this as a possibility in the future : a third party will create the custom node on Dynamo and then will have to create the node UI representation in Dynamo Player ( using some Dynamo Player API which doesn’t exist yet ). So the third party will have control over the DB level of the node and also over node UI representation in Dynamo Player.
Good news is that things are designed internally to make this possible in the future.
However , since this still requires a significant development effort we need to have a strong request from the community so that decision factors prioritize this accordingly. So please tweet about it on every occasion !

WhatsApp Dynamo package is now available for download

Today I released my tiny WhatsApp Dynamo package, and it’s now available for download and testing @ dynamopackages.com. WhatsAppDynamo provides integration with WhatsApp Web platform, allowing you to send text data (like URLs, file paths, parameter names, etc.) using Dynamo. Note that due to the platform limitations, images and files are not currently supported – they could be sent only as a hyperlink.

Currently WhatsAppDynamo package consists of a single custom node called “WhatsApp.SendMessage”. This node creates a WhatsApp message (string) in appropriate format to be used in WhatsApp Web platform. As I’ve already said, images and files are not supported due to WhatsApp limitations. Input desired phone number or leave this field blank (“UsePhoneNumber” switch is set to ‘False’ by default) to choose your contact later in browser.

Omit any zeroes, brackets or dashes when adding the phone number in international format: ‘+001-(555)1234567‘ must be converted to ‘15551234567‘ . Also please keep in mind that this phone number must have an active account on WhatsApp, otherwise you won’t be able to send your message.

Please feel free to test the package, and report issues & bugs here: Dynamo packages. It supports Dynamo 1.3.0+ & Revit 2016+

Download links: WhatsAppDynamo_(Rev.2017.7.12), Dynamopackages.com

Using Dynamo to send WhatsApp messages (proof of concept)

Today a lot of companies and AEC professionals use cloud messengers and productivity tools to organize projects and enhance collaboration. Some of these tools have an API to interact with (Trello, Slack, Asana, for instance), making them suitable for instant information delivery. If you use one of the above mentioned tools, you’re lucky! Dynamo community has already introduced a couple of packages that may streamline your data flow:

• DynAsana (free download @ dynamopackages.com)
• DynaSlack (free download @ dynamopackages.com)
• CONDUCTOR – Trello Tools for Builders (updated July 10, 2018: buy download for free @ provingground.io). Conductor is now free and open-source.

But what about WhatsApp? Unfortunately, it doesn’t provide us with the official API, but it has a web version that recognizes special URLs. These URLs could be compiled inside Dynamo in  appropriate format, and used to notify your teammates of some significant project issues!