selection of disabled parts from assembly environment

[Mark_Wigan]

hi guys i have a quick question,

  pre- inv 2017 we could select parts from within an assembly, in graphics window even if the parts were disabled... just by using a crossing-window over a small portion of the part.

I see that disabled parts cannot be selected these days from the graphics window (inv pro 2017.3.1)

i'm looking for a setting but not yet found if we can toggle back to the functionality that we were using in earlier versions. it was a good feature and saves looking through the browser.

many thanks, happy Friday.

[mcgyvr]

Per @dan_szymanski dan wrote..

 This behavior did in fact regress in Inv 2017.   The issue/bug has been brought to our Engineering Teams attention and we are investigating the cause in hopes of identifying a fix.  Thanks again for passing this along.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Mark,

This has been discussed a few months ago. This has something to do with what Un-Enable (disabled) really means. To skip the long discussion, you can start reading from post#45 and later.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-forum/selecting-parts-through-a-transparent-part-in-an-assem...

Enabled in Inventor means, the components are in the context. Un-Enabled means the components are taken out of the context. Since they are out of the context, they should not be selectable, which is the reason for the behavioral change.

Many thanks!

[Mark_Wigan]

thanks for the explanation. it is agreed that such parts are out of context and therefore not selectable, but it was a very specific & convenient tool that has been taken away.

hope we can get it back one day or provide users the Option to decide themselves whether they want that or not.

eg Ctrl + crossing window = selection of disabled.

ps- I didn't see anyone specifically asking for this to be taken out of use so I'm guessing it is just an oversight. probably easy to fix.

[Anonymous]

Right now the only way (I know of) to re-enable a part is to look for it in the browser, which can be very time consuming and inefficient. It seems a more efficient solution would be to allow a "SHIFT" (or "CTRL", or whatever other keyboard key) plus right-mouse click on an "un-enabled" component to select it, even if all that selection allows is the "Find in Browser" option.

[Bryan-Kelley]

Hi Dan,

@dan_szymanski
@Anonymous

  Since it sounds like there has been a regression on this, what about considering this request?

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/an-option-to-re-enable-all-disabled-parts/idi-p/6598491

Thanks,

Bryan

[johnsonshiue]

Hi @Bryan-Kelley and @Anonymous,

I am sorry I am not sure what regression is. Is it about the behavioral change for Transparency support?

There is actually a way to select all components regardless of their "Enable" status. Go to Select Filter -> Select All in Camera. It will select all visible components within the camera view.

I do agree having the ability to select all Enabled or Disabled components will be great.

Many thanks!

[Bryan-Kelley]

Hi Johnson,

  No, it's about trying to change the capabilities of selecting Enabled / Non-Enabled components. Selecting components on screen...Selected components - the two non-enabled parts are not selected...But, I can use the Invert Selection option......and the two components will be selected. Fairly cumbersome on a small assembly like this. Very cumbersome on an IAM with a few hundred components or more.

[brandont3LGPE]

Option for "RE-Enable ALL disabled parts" :

Please add this! It's insanely frustrating trying to find a few un-enabled parts in a browser tree with hundreds, if not 1000+ parts/assemblies. Sometimes i just need to be able to see behind and select behind a component. Transparent only allows seeing, i can't select and measure through. Unchecking "enabled" allows me to do my work, but then I must search the browser tree to find the parts. 

"RE-Enable ALL disabled parts" or being able to CTRL+Select or SHIFT+ Select would help tremendously. 

[nbonnett-murphy · Accepted solution]

It's been a while, but here's an iLogic rule that I cobbled together that will reenable all disabled components and parts in an assembly.

Sub main()
Dim asmDoc As AssemblyDocument = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument

' Call the function that traverses the assembly and sets the visibility.
Call reEnable(asmDoc.ComponentDefinition.Occurrences)

End Sub

Private Sub reEnable(Occurrences As ComponentOccurrences)
	' Iterate through each of the occurrences in the collection provided.
	Dim occ As ComponentOccurrence
	For Each occ In Occurrences
		If (occ.Enabled <> True) Then 'check if disabled
			Logger.Info("{0} is disabled, toggling.", occ.Name)
			occ.Enabled = True 'reenable
			'occ.Enabled = Not occ.Enabled 'Optional toggle for whatever reason. 
		End If

		' If this occurrence is a subassembly, recursively call this
		' function to traverse through the subassembly.
		If occ.DefinitionDocumentType = kAssemblyDocumentObject Then
			Call reEnable(occ.SubOccurrences)
		End If
	Next
End Sub

Thanks to @ekinsbhere for the self referencing sub that iterates through assembly trees.

[brandont3LGPE]

Success! Thanks very much for posting this and sharing with the community! Our CAD manager was able to implement this into our user interface so our team can resume using this functionality. Thanks again!