Creating selectors that target other selectors

Before you begin

You should be familiar with the various properties that define how a selector looks and what it controls, such as target and source. See Defining selectors for descriptions.

You can create a selector that targets another selector. In essence, the second selector filters the data displayed in the target selector. For example, a document contains a Grid/Graph with Subcategory and Item, filtered to display only the Books category. The document also includes two selectors. One selector displays the subcategories in the Books category (the Subcategory selector), while the other selector contains a list of individual books (the Item category). Both selectors target the Grid/Graph, to display data for the selected Subcategory and Item. The Subcategory selector targets the Item selector, filtering the Item selector to display only the books in the subcategory chosen in the Subcategory selector. For example, if the user selects Literature from the Subcategory selector, the Item selector is updated to display only books that fall under the Literature subcategory, instead of displaying a long list of every available book. This is shown below:

When you create a selector that targets another selector, do either of the following:

• Disable automatic target maintenance, which allows you to manually define the targets of selectors. (When targets are automatically maintained, all attribute and metric selectors automatically target all Grid/Graphs and panel stacks that are in the same panel or document section as the selector.)

• Place the target selector on a panel in the same document section as the source selector (the selector that affects the target selector). With automatic target maintenance, the source selector will automatically target that panel stack.

For a comparison of automatic and manual target selection, see Automatically maintaining targets for selectors. The following procedure includes instructions to disable automatic target maintenance.

Prerequisite

You should have added a selector to the document, to use as the target of the new selector. This selector targets a Grid/Graph or panel stack. For instructions, see Inserting selectors into documents. If you want to keep automatic target maintenance, place this target selector on a panel in the same document section as the source selector (the selector that affects the target selector). With automatic target maintenance, the source selector will automatically target that panel stack.

To create a selector that targets another selector

1. Open a document in the Document Editor. (How?)

   • Disable automatic target maintenance

   • Instead of disabling automatic target maintenance, you can place the target selector on a panel in the same document section as the source selector (the selector that affects the target). With automatic target maintenance, the source selector will automatically target that panel stack.

2. From the Format menu, select Document Properties. The Document Properties dialog box opens.

3. Click Layout in the list on the left.

4. Clear the Automatically maintain targets for all selectors in this layout check box.

5. Click OK to return to the document.

6. On the Insert menu, point to Selector, then choose the selector style. When you move the cursor to the Layout area, the pointer becomes crosshairs.

7. Click in the desired section of the Layout area. If you click and drag in the section, you can size the selector.

8. Right-click the selector, and choose Properties. The Properties dialog box opens.

9. Click the Selector tab.

10. In the Action type drop-down list, choose Select Attribute element.

11. Select a Source from the drop-down list.

    The Source list contains all of the attributes in all of the datasets in the document. The selector displays the attribute elements of the attribute selected as the Source.

12. From the list of Available targets on the right, choose the selector to target and click > to add it to the list of Selected targets. Select the Grid/Graph or panel stack to target (the same target as the target selector) and click > to add it to the list of Selected targets. You can add other Grid/Graphs and panel stacks as targets as well.

    If you did not disable automatic target maintenance, the Available targets and Selected targets lists are unavailable. If you want to disable it now and select the targets manually, click Manual Targets, and select OK at the prompt to continue. The lists are now available. Remove any Grid/Graphs and panel stacks that were added as Selected targets when automatic target maintenance was enabled. To do this, select them in the Selected targets list and click <. Add the target selector and the Grid/Graph or panel stack to the list of Selected targets.

13. ClickOKto save your changes and return to the document.

Now that you have created the selector, you can modify properties, such as multiple selections and simultaneous display of selector items, and format it.