From the course: Revit 2024: Essential Training for Architecture

The Home screen - Revit Tutorial

From the course: Revit 2024: Essential Training for Architecture

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The Home screen

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- [Instructor] In this video, we're going to take a quick tour of the Revit home screen. Now, the home screen usually greets you when you first launch the software and it will have these different areas to it that I'd like to point out to you. So let's start over here on the left hand side. We've got two sets of buttons under models and families. So for models you can see that we've got an open and a new button. And then directly beneath that we also have another open and new button for families. So what's the difference? Well, a model file is a project file. So you can think of that as the entire building where a family is something you would place in that model, like a piece of furniture or a piece of equipment. So you can open up or create either of these kinds of files and you would use these buttons to achieve that. Now, beneath that we have three areas that are really more like tabs. So we've got recent files, which is what I'm currently on and then beneath that audit desk docs and my insights. Now, currently I'm on recent files, and you can see that that exposes over here on the main part of the screen, all of the files that I've accessed recently. Now I've just installed the software. So rather than showing me the files that I personally have recently opened, what it's showing me instead is the sample files that come with the software. What you see on your screen might vary depending on whether or not you've already begun opening files in Revit or not. So don't be too concerned about whether or not your screen looks different than mine. The only real thing that you need to know about recent files is it just gives you a quick way to get back to files that you've opened up recently or samples that are provided with the software and you would simply be able to click on any one of these icons in order to access them. Now, beneath that, we have Autodesk Docs which is how you would access cloud-based files. And here again, don't be too concerned about whether or not your screen varies from mine. It most likely will because the only way that you would see the same thing as I see on my screen is if I had invited you to that project. So if you've got access to cloud-based projects either through your firm or you personally, then they'll be listed here and you'll have to choose an appropriate account or project from this dropdown list here at the top. Now, I'm not going to do anything further with it there but it's just I wanted to point out how you would access cloud-based files. And then finally, that leaves us with my insights which is kind of almost like analytics here in Revit. Now you'll see at the top of my screen here it says that there are no insights currently available and that's simply because I've just installed the software and it hasn't been able to compile any insights for me yet. So you'll need to come back to this screen after a while once you've been using Revit for a while, and it will begin to show you insights that will give you access to information that it's been able to compile on your usage of the software. So you might find that interesting. So beneath that are some text links for online resources like the online help and community forums. And so you're welcome to explore each of those if you will. Now I'm going to return to the recent files tab here and I'm going to click on this first item here which is the architectural sample model which comes with the US installation. Now, once again, you may not see that same file so feel free to click any file that does show up here. We're not actually going to do anything in the file. I just wanted to show you that you can easily use the recent files area to access a file and open it up. Now, the most important thing that I want you to see when doing that is notice that the interface has changed. So now instead of seeing the home screen I'm seeing the ribbon interface. Now we're going to talk more about this interface in future videos. So there's really nothing for us to do here other than to take notice of the fact that we've got this change in interface. Now, if you want to keep the file open and return to the home screen, you can do that. So the home screen didn't get closed it's just kind of hidden from view and there's an icon up here at the top of the screen which allows us to switch back to the home screen. And there's also a keyboard shortcut of control D if you prefer. And notice that when I click that takes me right back to the home screen. Everything still looks the same as where I left it. Now if I want to get back to the file that's still open in the background and hidden from view there's this button right here on the home screen and you can see that we can easily toggle back and forth between the two. Now, if you're done working on the project for the day and you close it out, that will return you to the home screen as well. So typically you're going to see the home screen when you first launch the software and you're also going to see it if you close all of the project files that you have open. And otherwise you would see it if you deliberately toggled through it. So those are some of the ways that you'll see the home screen and some of the functions that are available to you once you get there.

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