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The command Hide Elements in View has always been a thorny Revit feature with BIM managers and designers. Although using this command is commonly discouraged, there are cases where it can be used and others where it absolutely must not. Guardian has taken this into account and created customizable settings for applying the protection against the use of hiding elements in view.
We have all seen the help document "30 Ways to Find Hidden Elements in Revit". 30 ways? That’s crazy.
Users spend hours a week trying to find hidden elements in Revit. Let’s be honest, it’s because it’s much easier to click the Hide Elements in View than it is to manage view templates, create filters, and setup your entire Revit family library in a uniform standard (Guardian’s Project Properties solves this too!) to make View Templates and View Filters easy. Thus, users abuse the Hide Elements in View command. Hide Elements in View Protection provides you the means to communicate your best practices around the use of the command, ensuring everyone is doing it the same way.
When Hide Elements in View Protections is first enabled within Project Configurations under the Custom Interactions tab, it will be adopted by each project model once the model is registered. Hide Elements in View Protections can be further customized at the project level within Project Settings on a model-by-model basis.
Editing and creating rules under Customize behaviors when hiding elements in view will activate Hide Elements in View Protections.
Select the settings cog to configure rules that will automatically apply the Hide Elements in View Protections to any elements that meet the rules conditions.
Select the New button to create a new rule to identify which modeled elements that will be protected by the Hide Elements in View Protections. Create as many rules necessary for the elements that need to be protected. Please note, the rules will be processed in the order in which they are displayed. Use the arrow buttons to arrange the proper order of the rules.
Different AND/OR condition types can be used to create rules to meet specific needs for the Hide Elements in View Protections.
The different conditions that can be utilized include:
Category conditions can be used to specify categories that should be protected. Administrators can also specify categories that should be ignored by the rule.
The protection mode can be customized for each rule:
The category and element parameter conditions can be used to specify elements that should be protected from being hidden in a view. The various View conditions can be set to specify a view in which all elements must be protected from being hidden within that view. The username condition can be used to target the protection to certain users or even to exempt users from the rule.
When an end user attempts to Hide Elements in View, Guardian will alert them with the custom Command Message provided by the Project Administrator (If the Protection Mode is set to Guide or Prevent).
If set within the Custom Interactions settings for Hide Elements in View Protections, the end user will be required to provide a comment to proceed with Hiding Elements in View.
If set to Prevent mode, the end user will be required to provide the Project Password or One-Time Password to proceed with hiding the element.
There are two ways for a Project Administrator to receive notification; Project Central and Email Notifications.
Any Hide Elements in View rule that have been triggered will appear automatically within Project Central’s activity feed.
Enable email notifications in the individual rule set dialog by checking Send Email. When an end user attempts to hide an element that has been protected, the Project Administrator will be notified with an email containing the pertinent information.
Creating effective AND/OR rule sets can be a bit challenging at first. To help you get quickly started, we've developed a set of pre-configured Hide Elements in View Protections rule sets. These templates serve as both practical examples and ready-to-use solutions, allowing you to implement robust protections right away while you familiarize yourself with the system.
Used to prevent certain annotation elements (tags, dimensions, text notes, etc.) and lines from being hidden in view. As seen in the example below, Any Except is applied to those element types selected, which is addressed in other Rule Sets listed below.
Reach out to learn more, ask any questions, or meet the team! We'd love to learn more about your challenges and explore the more proactive solution.
