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All elements except the origin have got a father. The father is any other element, normally the origin. If the father is moved during editing or runtime the element will be moved as well. If the father is deleted the element will also be deleted.
By assigning several elements to a common father you can structure the machine which makes the editing easier, especially if you have got a huge number of elements. It is essential to look up in the element tree often and to tidy up in case of disorder.
You can specify the father of an element as follows:
1.) While creating the element you specify it by putting the new element on the father (position the mouse cursor so that the future father is marked). 2.) You call up machine|element tree, drag the element and drop it on the new father. This method is very useful to sort things out in a machine in which too many elements still have the origin as father. 3.) Click on the element with the right mouse button a little longer. Select ‘change father’ out of the context menu that appears then. Click on the new father with the left mouse button. Please note to click not until the word ‘father’ is underlined at the mouse cursor.
Since version 3.0 you can not change the father of an element by selecting one out of the edit mask. This has proved to be a difficult method for huge machines which led to operation errors.
If you have selected several elements for editing and change the father only these fathers of the elements will be changed whose old father is not in the selection. By this it is avoided that an already built up structure of father-child-connections gets destroyed.
If you create a new element and place it with the mouse so close to an already existing one so that it shows the black marking squares this one will automatically be selected as father of the new element. If you want to add new control elements, for example, to a box that is called ‘desk’ you will have to put down the element shortly in the near of the border of the box (only there boxes are markable) and only then shift it to its final position. So you save the additional specification of the father.
Fathers are not just there to move the children but to structure the machine logically as well. Assign all elements that belong to a machine part to one common father, if possible. This simplifies the editing and makes the finding of elements in the element tree easier.
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