Beta Tools - Communicator Button

[dbaldacchino]

The Show/Hide Communicator button doesn’t work like a toggle: it turns the dialog on but doesn’t turn off (also usually a toggle button would show depressed when on to give some feedback). It's like the button is only opening but not closing.

[ksobon]

The fact that it doesn't "always" toggle the panel on/off is because I haven't yet figured out how to make it consistent. Hit that button again, and it will actually work. Sometimes it just takes more than one button press.

[dbaldacchino]

What I'm observing is that if it is docked, it works but if undocked, it doesn't work consistently (almost never). However if the button is supposed to also show the state of the dialog (show pushed down when the dialog is visible) isn't working for me.

[ksobon]

Got you! I didn't realize that it wasn't working when undocked, and no, button was not design to show the state of the tab. I will try to solve the core functionality first, then I can handle the button graphics.

[dbaldacchino]

If focus is in the drawing window, it seems to close even when not docked. If focus is in another panel (from another addin or the properties palette) or the Communicator window itself, it doesn't close.

[ksobon]

Fixed. It should turn the communicator on and off pretty reliably. It also has a visual cue in form of a colored button. Green is on, red is off:

I will update the beta files.

[dbaldacchino]

The color is a nice idea, but I think it's better to just change the button text based on the state. If the dialog is shown, the text should read "Hide Communicator" and if it's hidden, it should read "Show Communicator". That makes it absolutely clear.

It's still not closing reliably for me. I'm not sure it's worth pursuing since the user can simply close the palette from the top-right "X". Is there a use case we're trying to solve with the toggling?

[dbaldacchino]

You know I think the issue with the button not seemingly responding is an issue with the palette UI. I'm noticing that even when I try to launch the addin installer, it doesn't respond immediately and takes several clicks. I wonder if this is a localized issue with my test machine. I almost always need to close down BIM List Browser to get the UI to respond.

[dbaldacchino]

Testing in 2016...when launching Revit, icon is not visible. I have to toggle the tool for it to be visible.

[ksobon]

@dbaldacchino that tool is part of HOK.MissionControl.dll so you have to update that before it will take effect. Addin installer might not always respond because it might be trying to connect to Mission Control. There is always a small lag before it pings the server. Now, I can see that you click it a ton of times:

I am not sure that BIM List has anything to do with this. On the other hand i don't have it installed so i might be wrong.

[dbaldacchino]

You want me to test right? :P That's what you get haha!

Not Bim List per se, but Autodesk's palette infrastructure is what I mean. As to the Communicator button, I did have Mission Control updated and installed...I just posted a cropped image above. I tried opening Revit a few times and it doesn't show the icon on startup; I have to toggle it to show up.

As for responsiveness, we can wait for others to test; maybe it's just my PC (shouldn't be an issue). Thanks.

[ksobon]

I think I was able to fix the above issues. It should now show the green icon indicating that communicator is on, and then text should read "Hide Communicator" telling user that if pressed Communicator will be turned off. This flips on button press.

The icon not loading should also be fixed. Added an Idling event to take care of that when document is opened.

[dbaldacchino]

Updated the addin but now the button stays with the red icon and the text doesn't change (shows "Show/Hide" as before).

[ksobon]

Ok, let's try the latest. I just updated sysvol. It had to do with the opening an existing document vs. creating a new one. Hopefully this helps.

[dbaldacchino]

We have liftoff! Thanks.