The Wastebasket is used to get rid of unwanted items. Sometimes this can include data. The Relation and Field icons are the only ones that affect your data. Throwing away any other icons will not destroy data.
The Wastebasket in the Collection window is used to discard an entire Relation and all of its data (you will be alerted and given a chance to change your mind).
In the Relation window, throwing a Field icon away will also throw away the data it represents (everything that has been entered into this one field on the form). You will get an alert here also.
Zooming icons: As you build your information system, you will “tie” some icons together. For instance, Field icons are placed in a Template design. This Template is selected in the View window for a form. Some of the same Field icons are also used in a calculation that appears on a different form. An Index is built, and a Query form is set up.
Given this, seems logical that if you throw away some icons, they will affect the use of other icons. This presents impossible decisions for Helix, and you are prevented from discarding icons that would ruin constructions involving other icons.
You cannot throw away:
a Field icon that is used in a calculation
a Field icon that is used in an Index
a Field icon that is used in a Template design
a Field icon that is used in a Post icon
an Abacus icon that is used in a Template, Index, field
validation, or Post
an Abacus icon that is used in another calculation
a Template icon that is selected for a form or Query or Use
From tile
a Query that is selected for a form
a View icon that is used on custom menus (in a User icon)
a View icon that is selected as an Auto-Open form in a Post
icon
a View icon that is used in a Sequence
a View icon for an entry form that is attached to a list
a Post icon that is selected for a form
a User icon that is used on Custom Menus (in another User
icon)
a User icon that is used in a Sequence
To throw away an icon, you must first remove or “de-select” it from other icons that use it, or throw these other icons away.
Some helpful hints:
Use the Get Info command to see what icons are using the icon you want to throw away.
A User icon can always be thrown away if it has not been used in another User's menus or in a Sequence.
A View icon can always be thrown away if it is not used as a menu item in a User icon, selected as an Auto-Open form in a Post icon, or linked to a list through a Repeat rectangle.
A Query icon can always be thrown away if it has not been used (selected) for a form in the View window.
A Post icon can be thrown away if it is not selected for a form.
A Template icon can be thrown away if it is not used (selected) in a Query or View window, selected in a Use From tile, or used as a subform in another Template.
An Index icon can be thrown away if it is not used (selected) in a Query or View window.
An Abacus icon can be thrown away if it is not used in a Template, Index, Post, field validation or any other calculation.
NOTE: When you select a number of icons and drag them into the Wastebasket, or select a Relation or several Relations and discard them, Helix evaluates the connections between all the objects being discarded. If objects are being used by other objects, but all connected objects are being discarded, Helix will go ahead and allow these connected objects to be discarded. This is the reason for a possible delay when discarding many items at once. You can sometimes speed up this evaluation/discard process by taking some layers off of the evaluation. Rather than try and discard a “complicated” Relation, open it and discard some of the objects at the “top” of the hierarchy, such as Views, then Indexes, then Templates, then Query icons, then Post icons. After this, you could select all of the Abacus icons and drag them into the Wastebasket. If some zoom back, they are either used to validate a field or looked up by another Relation.
Repeat for other Relations that lookup the first Relation (assuming you wish to discard them also). Then select all Relations to be discarded and drag them into the Wastebasket. The remaining Abacus icons, and all the fields inside these Relations will be discarded with a minimal wait.
