Maybe I do not understand how this is supposed to work, but it sure looks like a bug to me.

1. On a fresh work page, add an object (text = "Hello"); note its object name. While this object is active, view the Object Editor->Joints tab and notice that no object can be selected as either the Joint Object nor the Attachment. OK, this is understandable since it would take two objects to make a joint.

2. Add another object to the page (text="World"); note its object name. With this object is selected, view the Object Editor->Joints tab and notice that only one object is listed in the Joint Object and Attachment drop-down lists and that it is the first object placed on the work page. The second object is not available to be selected.

3. Now select the first object and use the Object Editor->Joints tab. You will see that the drop-down lists contain the second object's name and the first object is not on the list. Selecting the second object puts the first object on the list, but removes the second object's name.

At this point, I would think that with two objects, a join would be possible, but if the two objects are not listed in the drop down box, that is not possible.

4. Add a third object (an image this time); again, note its object name. With this object active, viewing the Object Editor->Joints page now shows two objects in the drop-down lists but the newly added image object is not one of them. Select any of the other objects and revisit the drop-down lists. You will see that the last object added is now present, but that the selected object is not.

5. Adding additional objects and selecting that object always removes the selected object from the drop-down lists. But if you click the work page (no active object) and look at the Joints drop-down lists, all objects are present. This is strange behavior since the selected object cannot be used as either a Joint Object nor Attachment since it is never listed.

At this point, making joints makes no sense. Selecting two objects results in random objects being joined since the objects being selected in the drop-down boxes appear to have no connection to the actual objects on the page.

Hi Larry,

As I understand it, the objects in the joint lists are joined with the selected object. So you would not expect to see the selected object in the list.

Having said that, the joint functionality may not be ready for prime time just yet.

How the object names get updated/inserted into the two lists needs to be looked at. If my work page contains "Mars" and two moons, "Phobos" and "Deimos", then selecting Mars should allow me to attach either Phobos or Deimos. However, selecting Mars puts the two moons in the drop-down lists and not Mars although selecting one of the moons as the Attachment does indeed join Mars to that moon.

Looking at the Joints tab for Mars again shows that the two moons are apparently joined even though they are not. But selecting the attached moon and looking at the Joints tab shows that it is indeed joined to Mars as it is now listed as the Joint Object.

I am afraid that your assessment that this is not quite ready for prime time is accurate, but I am looking forward to its completion.

Out of curiosity, do you have any old Unix programmers there? This joint stuff sure looks a lot like X-window/Motif attachments.

This is the way it is intended to work in your scenario (mars and two moons):

When you select Mars and open the joints tab, the two moons will appear in the lists. This allows you to connect either of these two objects to Mars. One object can attach to Mars and the other can be attached to from Mars. Mars is not in the list because it cannot be attached to itself.

But, as you see, there are problems with selection and with positioning of joints right now. The selection problem seems to be that the first object in a list is being displayed when no selection is yet in place.

I don't know the origin of the joints feature but there are no old unix programmers with us right now.

I clearly have no idea how joints are supposed to work, or better yet, why I would use them. So I will wait till you have completed everything.