I received a question from an instructor using my Design Integration using Autodesk Revit 2018 textbook in his class. All the computers in the lab were missing the energy settings properties in the Energy Settings dialog; compare the two examples in the image below.
Thanks to help from the great folks at Autodesk, the problem was...
The User Interface settings, in the Options dialog, has been adjusted. Notice, in the image below, there is an option to toggle off the Energy analysis and tools.
When this is turned off, the Energy Settings button, and a few others, are removed from the Analysis tab (on the Ribbon) as shown here.
So, if the Energy Settings button is gone, how did the instructor and his students manage to get in the dialog, shown above, and see that parameters were missing?
There is a glitch in the Matrix!
Well, my book instructs the reader to open the Project Properties dialog at the beginning of the book and enter some initial project related settings. One of those steps is to click the Edit... button next to Energy Settings and just take a look at the various options available. Thus, a loophole was found!
This is a new problem in Revit 2018, as the Autodesk Insight tools used to be a separate install (i.e. a Revit add-in) in previous versions.
I recommend new users do not change anything in the Options dialog as it can change how things will work when working though my books. Another related example is when you turn off the electrical tools in the UI settings, you lose the ability to create several types of parameters. I shared this with Steve Stafford back in 2013 and he posted about it here: Revit MEP - Options Affect Parameters.
