Temporary View Properties (Revit Glitch)

There is a strange glitch with the ‘Temporary View Properties’ tool in Revit.  You may have noticed when in sheets, you can’t activate the tool. It is designed just for active views.

The ‘Temporary View Properties’ function introduced in 2014 is a great tool, one I use on a daily basis and therefore has warranted its own keyboard shortcut.

The tool allows you to temporarily override the properties of a view made through the visual control bar and visibility graphics. The best example I can give for using the tool is when you want to temporarily override view templates. I have also heard of it being used as an alternative to ‘working views’.

Image with view active on sheets


Image with view deactivated on sheets

When in sheets, the tools available on the visual control bar are limited to ‘Temporary Hide/Isolate’ & ‘Reveal Hidden Elements’.  As mentioned I have a shortcut assigned to this particular command though. In the past I have accidently run the command without activating the view first. When I do this, Revit throws a “Serious error has occurred…” message. The first time I did this, I had a mini panic attack, clicked ‘Yes’ and expected my Revit to crash immediately after….. but… it didn’t, and never has. 

Since then I have run the command accidently a few times and for this post did it half a dozen times deliberately in sheets just to test it, Revit never crashed.

Since by default, this tool is not supposed to be activated when not in a view, having a shortcut assigned must override this function. Revit appears to get confused and throws up a warning, but rest assured, it appears Revit is only bluffing!

Using shortcuts for the other visual control bar tools not available, does not cause the same error.