Setting parameters inside the class, Null object

Question

What I am doing is trying to place views on a sheet in Revit, either center page or center of one of four quadrants. But I have no experience building classes and I am struggling. I want to set all my properties upon initialization and they should not change once the pickbox outline has been drawn.

• I can draw the pick box with ViewPortOutline(UIDocument UIDoc) and if I taskDialog a pickBox.Min.X will return its values

• but when I get to the 'setXYZParameter' this locks me in the pickbox and will not move to the dialogbox

• if I comment out the 'setXYZParameter' the code moves forward to the dialog box but the ReturnOutline() pickBox.Min.X is null because the 'setXYZParameter' is commented out.

  public class ViewPortOutline { public static XYZ VP_CenterPoint { get; set; } public static XYZ VP_CenterPoint_Q1 { get; set; } public static XYZ VP_CenterPoint_Q2 { get; set; } public static XYZ VP_CenterPoint_Q3 { get; set; } public static XYZ VP_CenterPoint_Q4 { get; set; } private static UIDocument _UIDoc { get; set; } public static PickedBox pickBox { get; set; }

    public ViewPortOutline(UIDocument UIDoc)
    {
        _UIDoc = UIDoc;
        PickBox();
    }
  
    public static void PickBox()
    {
        Selection selection = _UIDoc.Selection;
        PickedBox pickBox = selection.PickBox(PickBoxStyle.Directional);//<<<  Problem Here
  
        setXYZParameters();
    }
  
    public static Outline ReturnOutline()
    {
        double minX = pickBox.Min.X;//<<<  Null
        double minY = pickBox.Min.Y;
  
        double maxX = pickBox.Max.X;
        double maxY = pickBox.Max.Y;
  
        double sminX = Math.Min(minX, maxX);
        double sminY = Math.Min(minY, maxY);
  
        double smaxX = Math.Max(minX, maxX);
        double smaxY = Math.Max(minY, maxY);
  
        Outline outline = new Outline(new XYZ(sminX, sminY, 0), new XYZ(smaxX, smaxY, 0));
  
        return outline;
    }
  
    public static void ReturnCenterPoints(UIDocument uidoc, Outline outline,
        out XYZ midpoint, out XYZ q1c, out XYZ q2c, out XYZ q3c, out XYZ q4c)
    {
        double outlineDiagonal = outline.GetDiagonalLength();
        double outlineCenter = outline.GetDiagonalLength() / 2;
  
        XYZ bottomleft = (outline.MinimumPoint);
        XYZ topleft = new XYZ(outline.MinimumPoint[0], outline.MaximumPoint[1], 0);
  
        XYZ topright = (outline.MaximumPoint);
        XYZ bottomright = new XYZ(outline.MaximumPoint[0], outline.MinimumPoint[1], 0);
  
        midpoint = new XYZ((outline.MaximumPoint[0]) / 2, (outline.MaximumPoint[1]) / 2, 0);
  
        XYZ midleft = new XYZ(outline.MinimumPoint[0], outline.MaximumPoint[1] / 2, 0);
        XYZ midtop = new XYZ(outline.MaximumPoint[0] / 2, outline.MaximumPoint[1], 0);
        XYZ midright = new XYZ(outline.MaximumPoint[0], outline.MaximumPoint[1] / 2, 0);
        XYZ midbottom = new XYZ(outline.MaximumPoint[0] / 2, outline.MinimumPoint[1], 0);
  
        Outline q1 = new Outline(midpoint, topright);
        q1c = new XYZ(
            q1.MaximumPoint[0] / 2,
            q1.MaximumPoint[1] / 2, 0);
  
        Outline q2 = new Outline(midleft, midtop);
        q2c = new XYZ(
            q2.MaximumPoint[0] / 2,
            q2.MaximumPoint[1] / 2, 0);
  
        Outline q3 = new Outline(bottomleft, midpoint);
        q3c = new XYZ(
            q3.MaximumPoint[0] / 2,
            q3.MaximumPoint[1] / 2, 0);
  
        Outline q4 = new Outline(midbottom, midright);
        q4c = new XYZ(
            q4.MaximumPoint[0] / 2,
            q4.MaximumPoint[1] / 2, 0);
    }
  
    public static void setXYZParameters()
    {
        XYZ mp; XYZ q1c; XYZ q2c; XYZ q3c; XYZ q4c;
  
        ReturnCenterPoints(_UIDoc, ReturnOutline(),
            out mp, out q1c, out q2c, out q3c, out q4c);
  
        VP_CenterPoint = mp;
        VP_CenterPoint_Q1 = q1c;
        VP_CenterPoint_Q2 = q2c;
        VP_CenterPoint_Q3 = q3c;
        VP_CenterPoint_Q4 = q4c;
    }
  

  }

        ViewPortOutline outline = new ViewPortOutline(uidoc);
  
  
        UnitSetup_Form form = new UnitSetup_Form(commandData);
        form.ShowDialog();
  

Answer 1

I didn't pass my arguments...

setXYZParameters(pickBox);
public static Outline ReturnOutline(PickedBox pickBox)
public static void setXYZParameters(PickedBox pickBox)
ReturnCenterPoints(_UIDoc, ReturnOutline(pickBox),
            out midpoint, out q1c, out q2c, out q3c, out q4c);

Programming is stressful, I spend more time debugging then creating...