Revit add-in to search Revit project elements and their parameter values for a given string.

Published as 'Revit String Search' Plugin of the Month in November 2011.

• String Search ADN Plugin of the Month
• Retrieve Embedded Resource Image

Standard Revit add-in requirements. If Revit is up and running, all is fine.

Standard Revit add-in installation: copy the add-in .NET assembly DLL and manifest file to one of the Revit Addins folders, e.g.:

The following steps are for using the plugin with Revit 2015.

1. If you are using Vista or Windows 7, first check whether the zip file needs to be unblocked. Right-click on the zip file and select "Properties". If you see an "Unblock" button, then click it.

2. Copy the plugin module "ADNPlugin-StringSearch.dll" and the add-in manifest file "ADNPlugin-StringSearch.addin" to one of the following locations:

• C:\Users\ your login \AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Revit\Addins\2015

or

• C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\Revit\Addins\2015

The first location will make the plugin available for your use only, while the second is for all users of your computer.

** Note: The first location is recommended if you have security permission issues (e.g., when UAC is turned on).

If you decide on a different location for the DLL, please modify the following line in the add-in manifest file "ADNPlugin-StringSearch.addin" to match your desired location:

<Assembly>.\ADNPlugin-StringSearch.dll</Assembly>

Once installed, the "String Search" command becomes available in Revit. Go to the "Add-Ins" tab > "String Search" panel. It shows the "String Search" button to launch the command.

In Revit, click "Add-Ins" > "String Search" panel > "String Search" to launch the command.

In the dialogue that appears, you can type in the search string in the 'Find what' text box.

Click 'OK'. The command will search for the given string on all standard and user parameters of all elements in the current view.

All occurrences of the search string are listed in a data grid view in a modeless navigator dialogue. Double click on a row in the navigator to zoom to the element.

A log file of the search operation and its results is created in your temporary directory. To view the log file, right click on the search form and select 'Display Log File'.

The string matching options and the elements and parameters to search can be modified as follows.

Category: Limit the search to elements belonging to a specific category. All other categories will be skipped. Specify an asterisk '*' to search all categories. This is the default setting.

Parameter name: You can specify the name of a specific parameter to search in. All other parameters will be skipped. Specify an asterisk '*' to search all parameters. This is the default setting.

Find options: Match case and match whole parameter limit the string pattern matching to more specific cases, i.e. the upper and lower case of each character must match, and the specified search string must match the entire parameter value.

Element selection: You can search either the currently selected element set, all elements in the current view, or all elements in the entire project. The latter can be slow.

Instances versus Types and Symbols: You can specify whether to search in the BIM elements themselves, such as walls and family instances, or in the element types, such as wall types and family symbols. When searching element types, there is no way to limit the search to selected elements (because they cannot be selected) or to a view (because they are not displayed graphically). By default, all elements in the current view are searched. Searching types is not additional to instances, it is complementary. You can search either element types (derived from ElementType in the API) or instances, but not both at once.

Parameter selection: You can select whether only standard built-in Revit parameters are searched, or user-defined family and shared parameters, or both.

Advanced: You have the option of using a regular expression to specify the search string. This option is intended for users with advanced programming knowledge and is not suited for non- programmers. The .NET RegEx library is used for this. For more detail about regular expression, please refer to the following link to a 'cheat sheet':

http://regexlib.com/cheatsheet.aspx

You can also search in BuiltInParameters, which are only visible through the Revit API. Again, this option is intended for users with advanced programming knowledge and is not suited for others. With this option, the parameter selection option is ignored and the 'Parameter name' setting switches to a list of all built-in parameters. Again, you can search in all of them using the asterisk '*', or pick a specific one. Searching all built-in parameters across the entire project can be extremely slow.

To search for a string 'abc' in all parameter values of all elements in the current view, simply type in 'abc' as the search string and hit OK. If any occurrences are found, they are listed in the modeless navigator window. You can continue working in Revit as normal. If you double click an entry in the navigator, the Revit screen will zoom in to the selected element and highlight it.

To search for all structurally non-bearing walls, you might make use of the built-in parameter option as follows:

• Enter the search string 'Non-bearing'
• Under Category, select Walls
• Under Advanced, select 'Search BuiltInParameters'
• Under Built-in parameter, select WALL_STRUCTURAL_USAGE_TEXT_PARAM

Click OK and examine the results in the navigator.

Simply removing "ADNPlugin-StringSearch.addin" file from your installation folder will uninstall the plugin.

This plugin was written by Jeremy Tammik, The Building Coder, of the Developer Technical Services team, Autodesk Inc.

Many thanks to Saikat Bhattacharya for his careful review and many valuable suggestions!

For more information on developing with Revit, please visit the Revit Developer Center and The Building Coder.

Email us at [email protected] with feedback or requests for enhancements, or submit a comment to The Building Coder.

• 0.0 Pre-release for Revit 2011
• 1.0 Original release for Revit 2012
• 2.0 Migrated to Revit 2013
• 3.0 Migrated to Revit 2014
• 2015.0.0.0 Migrated to Revit 2015

• Implement a progress bar for long operations (e.g. searching all built-in parameters on all elements).

• Support for search and replace.

(C) Copyright 2011-2014 by Autodesk, Inc.

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software in object code form for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appears in all copies and that both that copyright notice and the limited warranty and restricted rights notice below appear in all supporting documentation.

AUTODESK PROVIDES THIS PROGRAM "AS IS" AND WITH ALL FAULTS. AUTODESK SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR USE. AUTODESK, INC. DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE OPERATION OF THE PROGRAM WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE.

This sample is licensed under the terms of the MIT License. Please see the LICENSE file for full details.