Enable / Disable

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So I build this overview (See attached) which is a root container and an individual container for each corresponding line.

I built each line on it’s own as zoom screens and they have their own windows outside this main overview … I got things mostly where I wanted and then started clicking around to see what all I could do.

Inside the Root Container there was a check box called enable (set to true) which screamed do not touch so of course I had to click it … everything went gray … makes sense if everything is disabled it’s not going to be working so moving on I clicked enable and nothing happened, clicked it a few times t make sure I was clicking it in the right manner … nothing … panic was starting to set in as it appeared I couldn’t do ANYTHING now as far as animation or control. I was able to click individual images and I noticed they too were not enabled so I enabled one and it started working … then it struck me. I have about 80 objects per container and 8 containers … I better start clicking.

I actually just deleted all the containers and copied them from the other windows but it got me thinking about what if I (or someone I work with) did this in the field.

Is there an easier way out ?

Should it have enabled all when I did that first renable click in the root container ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

–Chris

ROC_overview.png1279×800 93 KB

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[quote=“cengel”]… there was a check box called enable (set to true) which screamed do not touch…[/quote]You’ve got great intuition

[quote=“cengel”]so of course I had to click it[/quote]But bad impulse control!

Ok, so heres the story. The enabled property is what the access control (user group security) system uses. And as you discovered, disabling a container will disable its children, but the reverse is not true. This is true for an unfortunate side effect of the fact that if it were true, components that were disabled would become enabled upon opening a window because their parent is enabled. It is something we’ve been meaning to take a look at because a lot of people have fallen into this trap. The rule of thumb is to always keep everything enabled in the Designer, and only disable things dynamically in the Client.

Luckilly getting out of the trap is easy. You can just do a select all and hit the enabled property to do a wholesale re-enabling. Or close the window and hit “no” if you haven’t made changes recently.

Hope this helps,