Is it possible to temporarily disable a user's interaction with widget.newSwitch?

Getting Started Newbie Questions
#1

 I don’t want to remove the widget from view, I just want to temporarily inactivate it until one of my functions specifies it to resume “listening” for user input. So I’m thinking I need to do something similar to disabling the event listener for my widget.newSwitch (onOff slider button). However, I don’t know what the coding for the widget looks like, otherwise I was thinking I might be able to play around with some of the variables that it uses. 

Any ideas?

Here’s the link to the doc:

https://docs.coronalabs.com/api/library/widget/newSwitch.html

#2

You could place an invisible rect (alpha 0.01) on top that intercepts all the touch events on that area of the screen.

#3

local coverButton = display.newRect(switchVariableHere.x, switchVariableHere.y, switchVariableHere.width, switchVariableHere.height)
coverButton.alpha=.000001
coverButton:addEventListener(“touch”, function() return true end)

#4

Thanks for the help guys, works great! 

Also @scottrules44, corona apparently doesn’t like your alpha of 0.000001 :stuck_out_tongue: , I guess it internally rounds that to 0. I found that 0.01 was the smallest non-zero alpha value you could use.  

Also if you don’t mind, I never understood what return true actually means. I’m assuming that when a user presses the screen, that “stimulus” travels all the was down into multiple layers until it hits the last layer and a “true” statement returns? AKA if after one layer deep we tell the device that yes, it “returned true”, then the stimulus will halt its downward traveling motion?

#5

Return true prevents the touch event from continuing down the layers of display objects as shown in this thread

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/64746-multilayered-intersection-with-events/

#6

https://youtu.be/tdq5yqM1-Us
Go to
3:00

#7

You can do a totally invisible rect by setting .isVisible = false but you also have to set .isHitTestable = true for it to catch the touch/tap events.

local blockTouch = display.newRect( 100, 100, 50, 50 ) blockTouch.isVisible = false blockTouch.isHitTestable = true

Or you could forego making it invisible and do something like this:

-- black background blockTouch:setFillColor( 0, 0, 0, 0.5 ) blockTouch.blendMode = "multiply" -- white background blockTouch:setFillColor( 1, 1, 1, 0.5 ) blockTouch.blendMode = "screen"

That way you’re simultaneously  providing a visual clue that the switch is disabled.

Rob

#8

You could place an invisible rect (alpha 0.01) on top that intercepts all the touch events on that area of the screen.

#9

local coverButton = display.newRect(switchVariableHere.x, switchVariableHere.y, switchVariableHere.width, switchVariableHere.height)
coverButton.alpha=.000001
coverButton:addEventListener(“touch”, function() return true end)

#10

Thanks for the help guys, works great! 

Also @scottrules44, corona apparently doesn’t like your alpha of 0.000001 :stuck_out_tongue: , I guess it internally rounds that to 0. I found that 0.01 was the smallest non-zero alpha value you could use.  

Also if you don’t mind, I never understood what return true actually means. I’m assuming that when a user presses the screen, that “stimulus” travels all the was down into multiple layers until it hits the last layer and a “true” statement returns? AKA if after one layer deep we tell the device that yes, it “returned true”, then the stimulus will halt its downward traveling motion?

#11

Return true prevents the touch event from continuing down the layers of display objects as shown in this thread

https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/64746-multilayered-intersection-with-events/

#12

https://youtu.be/tdq5yqM1-Us
Go to
3:00

#13

You can do a totally invisible rect by setting .isVisible = false but you also have to set .isHitTestable = true for it to catch the touch/tap events.

local blockTouch = display.newRect( 100, 100, 50, 50 ) blockTouch.isVisible = false blockTouch.isHitTestable = true

Or you could forego making it invisible and do something like this:

-- black background blockTouch:setFillColor( 0, 0, 0, 0.5 ) blockTouch.blendMode = "multiply" -- white background blockTouch:setFillColor( 1, 1, 1, 0.5 ) blockTouch.blendMode = "screen"

That way you’re simultaneously  providing a visual clue that the switch is disabled.

Rob