That is the question.
History Lesson
One of the most troubling support issues is when a designer working in Revit exclaims that things moved, deleted or were altered “on their own”. It takes a delicate approach to resolve this issue, as it is often a question of process or an incomplete understanding of the tool. For many years, Press and Drag has been something that I’ve advocated as disabled when deploying Revit to a large firm. To do this, we would simply enter the following line(s), if they don’t exist, in the Revit.ini:
[Selection] AllowPressAndDrag=0
Some feel very strongly about this setting.
Today
Now, in Revit 2014, there are a number of new options, and again most of them are by default enabled. The question is, should the helpful BIM Manager change these settings, as we have before, or is the general skill level of designers using Revit now at the place where they can make their own informed choices? To select, or not select? That is the question, again.
You can get to these settings in Revit 2014 at any time from the Modify tool drop down, or on the Status bar, in the lower right corner. See images below.
Here is a run down of the available options:
- Select Links
- Select Underlay Elements
- Select Pinned Elements
- Select Elements by Face
- Drag Elements on Selection (The old Press and Drag with a more descriptive name)
For more details on what each of these do, go read up on Controlling the Selection of Elements, in the Revit Wiki Help.
Out-of-the-box, Revit has Select Elements by Face disabled. This makes good sense, else working in 3D or elevation/section views would be unpredictable and inconsistent with prior behavior for most tasks. I somehow think modifying any of the options would cause more help desk calls in the future, not to mention more frustration by someone when they can’t select a thing that is clearly visible on screen.
Below are the new options that you could put into your Revit.ini should you desire. Enabled is a value of 1, and disabled is a value of 0. Again, I’m just not sure of the right thing to do. I’ve indicated my current thoughts in blue.
[Selection] AllowLinkSelection=0 AllowUnderlaySelection=0 AllowPinnedSelection=1 AllowFaceSelection=0 AllowPressAndDrag=0
I’d love to hear what you would select in the comments.
