There has been much debate, discussion, argument about the new UI in Revit 2010 and I am sure this will rage on for some time to come. But to pick on what Steve Stafford describes as a Department of Unfair, I am not 100% sure what Autodesk had in mind when they got to the ribbon tab for Worksets in Revit 2010. We use Worksets be default on "ALL" our projects, whether they are design studies or full on BIM models. The Worksets tools in 2010 are bundled under a tab called "Collaborate", where they share life with copy/monitor, coordination review and interference check.
You will notice that some of terminology has changed with phrases like Synchronize with Central and Synchronize now, this isn't really the issue as the name change is a positive move. The challenge is that with the new Ribbon implementation, the tab for the Worksets are hidden from the user if you decide to enable Worksharing on your project.
The only way to access the commands like Synchronize with Central (used to be called Save to Central) is to actually go to the Collaboration tab. The Workset tab commands should be visible to the user "ALL" the time, you don't really want to be hunting through various tabs to find the command you need. Now, I know what you're thinking, "Hey David, can't you just add the commands you require to the QAT?" ED - Well you CAN cause as many sharp eyed readers have already told be its there by default! You can't add tools twice.
The whole Workset concept is a black art for many users and they just don't want to know about what goes on in the background, it is also an area of Revit which can cause the most problems, so hiding the tools, in my view is a "NO-NO".
So what are the possible solutions in the short term for this release, until Autodesk see fit to address this problem? You could setup keyboard shortcuts to access the tools or alternatively you could rip off the ribbon tab to have it floating around the screen.
I am not a big fan of floating tool palettes as it takes up screen real estate, but if it solves the problem for those that prefer to use icons, then so be it. In the long term, I do hope that Autodesk takes a serious look at how users access the Workset tools. BIM at its heart is all about collaboration and good communication. Good communication should mean that the tools that perform the collaboration process are easily accessible and visible all the time. I would hope the majority or Revit users who use Worksharing would agree with me too.
