Add selection toggle to disable selecting Assemblies (like pinned elements toggle)

[GatisM]

In Revit, when assemblies are used (especially in structural projects), it becomes really difficult to select individual elements inside them — like rebars, tags, or small components — because Revit always selects the whole AssemblyInstance first.

This means we constantly have to TAB multiple times just to reach the element we actually want to edit. It’s slow, frustrating, and error-prone — especially when working in dense areas with many assemblies.

Feature Request:
Please add a new selection toggle (next to the existing ones at the bottom-left corner of the Revit UI) that lets us disable selecting assemblies, just like we can already do with:

• "Select pinned elements"

• "Select underlay elements"

• "Select links"

Why it matters:

• Huge time saver when working with detailed assemblies

• Prevents constant mis-clicking

• Makes selection more precise and intuitive

• Fits naturally into Revit’s existing selection toggle system

Alternative (for developers):
If a built-in toggle is not planned, please at least open up the selection system in the Revit API, so we can build custom selection filters that behave globally — the same way the native toggles do.

Very common for precast modeling.

[GatisM]

Workaround that helps for now:
Temporarily isolate all elements in the view except Assembly Instance elements.
This hides the assembly wrapper and makes it possible to directly select and tag elements inside — like rebars, details, or face-based families — without using TAB.
Significantly improves efficiency when working with assemblies.

[S.orchardR4UKW]

The workaround we had found was to put the assemblies on their own workset.  You may need to do this manually if you don't have an addin to manage them.  But once there on a workset just hind the workset and only the assembly masking layer will go away but the elements will stay.  

Can you explain how you temporarily isolate all the elements in the view besides the assembly?  I couldn't figure this one out. 

[gatis_reld]

Hi,

Manually, it’s very simple: select all elements, filter out the Assembly category, then use Isolate in View. This works only for the current view, not the entire project. It’s helpful for tagging or modeling rebars. To increase productivity, I created a pyRevit push button for these manual steps. Now I just click the icon, and assemblies are no longer selectable in the view.

Workset method sounds also effective, will try.

[S.orchardR4UKW]

that's a great idea, I didn't even think of making a python script to do this.  The workset method is pretty good but doesn't work if I'm helping on other peoples projects and they don't want me adding worksets haha.  I will give your method a shot.