How can I detect uiview is an activated viewport - revit-api

Question

I need to detect whether a Uiview is a standard opened view or if it is an activated viewport on a sheet. Querying the uiview’s view Id returns the Id of the activated viewport's view. I have found no direct way to detect that a uiview is actually a sheet with an activated viewport.
I am already tracking opened views in the view activated event for another purpose. So I considered storing the view Id with the uiview hashcode for later checking that it was indeed a sheetview prior to becoming an activated view. Unfortunately, and I think in opposition to standard use, the uiview hashcode is not stable. Multiple hashcode requests from the uiview object return different values.
Does anyone have a way to detect this condition? I need to be able to use the the methods on the uiview still. So any help to find the actual child windows I would like to relate to the uiview object. The view still says "Sheet: ..." in the title when a view is activated.

Answer 1

TaskDialog mainDialog = new TaskDialog("Hello, viewport check!");
mainDialog.MainInstruction = "Hello, viewport check!";
mainDialog.MainContent =
"Sadly Revit API doesn't automatically know if the user is in an active viewport. "
+ "Please click 'Yes' if your are, or 'No' if your not.";
mainDialog.AddCommandLink(TaskDialogCommandLinkId.CommandLink1,
"Yes, I am in an active viewport on a sheet.");
mainDialog.AddCommandLink(TaskDialogCommandLinkId.CommandLink2,
"No, I am just in an ordinary view.");
mainDialog.CommonButtons = TaskDialogCommonButtons.Close;
mainDialog.DefaultButton = TaskDialogResult.Close;
TaskDialogResult tResult = mainDialog.Show();
bool YesOrNo = true;
if (TaskDialogResult.CommandLink1 == tResult)
{
YesOrNo = true;
}
else if (TaskDialogResult.CommandLink2 == tResult)
{
YesOrNo = false;
}
else{
return;
}

Answer 2

You can use the ViewSheet GetAllViewports method to determine all the viewports on a given sheet. Using that, you could put together a bi-directional dictionary lookup system map any sheet to all the viewports it hosts and vice versa. That should help solve your task. Here is some example usage:
http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/blog/2014/04/determining-the-size-and-location-of-viewports-on-a-sheet.html

Answer 3

Im late to the party - but another way to sense if the user is in a viewport is to investigate the Process.MainWindow title. Something like this (in RevitPythonShell):
import threading, clr
from System.Diagnostics import Process
# need winform libraries for feedback form only
clr.AddReference("System.Windows.Forms")
from System.Windows.Forms import Form, Label
app = __revit__.Application
doc = __revit__.ActiveUIDocument.Document
ui = __revit__.ActiveUIDocument
def lookAtWindow(activeView):
# Looking for one of three conditions:
# 1. User is on a sheet (ActiveView will be DrawingSheet)
# 2. User is in an active ViewPort on a sheet (ActiveView will NOT be be DrawingSheet, but MainWindowTitle will contain " - [Sheet: " string)
# 3. User is on a View (neither of the previous two conditions)
result = False
if str(activeView.ViewType) == 'DrawingSheet':
result = 'Youre on a sheet'
else:
processes = list(Process.GetProcesses())
for process in processes:
window = process.MainWindowTitle
if window and 'Autodesk Revit '+app.VersionName[-4:] in window and ' - [Sheet: ' in window and ' - '+doc.Title+']' in window:
result = 'I reckon youre in a Viewport'
if not result:
result = 'so you must be in a '+str(activeView.ViewType)
form = Form()
form.Width = 300
form.Height = 100
label = Label()
label.Width = 280
label.Height = 70
label.Text = result
label.Parent = form
form.ShowDialog()
# need to close RevitPythonShell console before checking MainWindowTitle, so run on timer
threading.Timer(1, lookAtWindow, [ui.ActiveView]).start()
__window__.Close()