This tab is designed to manage the feature assignments for components.
The overview of existing feature assignments is displayed as a group of tiles, each representing the relation to one specific feature. Whilst each component may be assigned to a specific feature exactly once or not at all, it is possible to assign a component to several features at the same time. The number of current feature assignments is displayed at the right-hand side of the FEATURES tab label.
Each tile that represents a feature assignment is linked to the table entry for that specific feature. Simply click the tile, or right-click it and select Go to feature from the context-menu to call the feature row within the TABLES view.
To Add a Feature Assignment
The button to call the Feature selection dialog for establishing new assignment is displayed on the upper left corner of the FEATURES tab. Click it to initiate feature assignment.
Browse the tree structure of features and select the one the component has to be assigned to. Multi-selections can be achieved by pressing the Control key whilst clicking additional feature items.
Confirm the assignment by clicking OK.
The Select Feature dialog is closed. The FEATURES tab of the components details pane is automatically updated to show the new assignment.
To abort the assignment procedure, users either click CANCEL or close the dialog by clicking on the close icon in the upper right corner of the dialog window.
If the new assignment is the first for the current component, the prior red icon presented for the component within the list view on the left-hand side of the COMPONENTS view is turned into green.
To Delete a Feature Assignment
Right-click the tile of the existing feature assignment that has to be removed. From the context-menu, select Remove from feature. The assignment is removed immediately.
Please keep in mind that removing the last feature assignment from a component may lead to an invalid target package, since MSI packages build from a project in such a condition will not pass ICE validation and may lead to improper installation routines.
As soon as the last feature is removed, the icon of the component in the item list on the left-hand side of the COMPONENTS view is switched into red in order to remind the user of the assignment requirement. If the component is not required any longer, it should be removed from the packaging project.