Revit has two entirely different ways of pinning elements, but they share the same UI commands & icons, so this is a recipe for confusion. I will try to shed some light on the differences here:
Most elements in Revit can be manually pinned by a user.
This will lock an element in place to prevent it
being moved, rotated or deleted.
Pinned elements can be unpinned to free them up to be moved, rotated or
deleted
Chain-Pin
Some Revit elements host other elements that
can be locked / unlocked in place on the host – this also uses a ‘Pin’ icon
with a chain-link symbol beside it. The difference in icon to a normal pin is very subtle, and easily missed – but is really important to see and understand.
I like to call these ‘Chain-Pinned’ elements, because of the chain-link symbol – and we need some kind of phrase to differentiate them from regular pinning. They could also be
described as host ‘Type-Driven’ because some of their parameters are controlled…
described as host ‘Type-Driven’ because some of their parameters are controlled…