Revit 2014 Selection Features

There are plenty of subtle things that routinely trip people up while they work in Revit. One such trip hazard is that linked files tend to overwhelm a view and are much too easy to select and inadvertently drag out of position. It is one reason people seem to recoil at using Press and Drag. In Revit 2014 a small collection of toggle buttons have been added to the Status Bar, next to the Filter and Element Count features.

The first button, starting at the left, is the option called Select Links. It is either on or off and allows us to control the selection of linked files. This should help alleviate some of the workarounds that have been practiced to avoid messing with a link, such as: Pinning, individual worksets and using Design Options.

The second button is Select Underlay Elements and this will prevent interacting with any elements that are visible because the view has another level assigned as an underlay. The selection window options (crossing and enclosing) have always been blind to underlay information and even elements above or below a view's primary range, and now picking elements individually can too.

If you don't like being able to interact with elements that you've pinned then the third button, Select Pinned Elements is your new friend. It will make it a little harder to delete pinned elements, assuming we turn the option off.

For years we have had to remind others and even ourselves that Revit is fairly blind when it comes to the faces of elements. Try to select a wall, that doesn't have a pattern on its surface, by placing the cursor somewhere on its face and Revit is oblivious. The new fourth button, Select Elements by Face changes all that. We'll be able to decide when and if faces are the easier way to select elements. We've spent years reminding people to select things at edges or boundaries of elements. Now we'll have the option but I suspect we'll still get to remind them of the options and how to change the setting.

The fifth button, Drag Elements on Selection is the renamed Press and Drag feature. Same as it ever was, just with a slightly more obvious name, one that explains its action and result.

The Modify button on the Ribbon now has a new drop down list that provides check boxes for each of these new options so we have a "front and side door" as usual,

Here's to the subtle stuff!

Addendum: As Aaron mentions in his comment, these settings can be captured in the .ini file which means something that you can control during deployment, if that's your particular concern.