Unlink visibleProperty for pipeNodes

[marlitas]

meanShareAndBalance.levelOutScreen.model.pipes.pipe1.isActiveProperty has meanShareAndBalance.levelOutScreen.view.pipes.pipeNode1.visibleProperty as a linked property Seems like redundant information Also seems we don’t need to link this visibleProperty

Does Node allow us to remove this link? If yes, do it, if not don't do it.

[marlitas]

I'm a little confused when looking at the studio tree, so want to check in with @amanda-phet before moving forward.

[marlitas]

@amanda-phet and I talked through this, and I have a solution, but I'm not sure how hacky it is... Maybe it's fine and I'm overthinking it? I posted a question in the developer slack channel. We'll see what they say.

Subject: [PATCH] visibleProperty linkedElement
---
Index: js/level-out/view/PipeNode.ts
IDEA additional info:
Subsystem: com.intellij.openapi.diff.impl.patch.CharsetEP
<+>UTF-8
===================================================================
diff --git a/js/level-out/view/PipeNode.ts b/js/level-out/view/PipeNode.ts
--- a/js/level-out/view/PipeNode.ts (revision 2437c6036903c0cd4a49d9402c2d167aaa162c70)
+++ b/js/level-out/view/PipeNode.ts (date 1715974121725)
@@ -97,12 +97,16 @@
     valveNode.addInputListener( valveRotationFireListener );

     const combinedOptions = combineOptions<NodeOptions>( {
-      visibleProperty: pipe.isActiveProperty,
+      phetioVisiblePropertyInstrumented: false,
       enabledProperty: arePipesEnabledProperty,
       children: [ pipeRectangle, pipeStrokeLeft, pipeStrokeBottom, pipeStrokeTop, pipeStrokeRight, valveNode ]
     }, options );
     super( combinedOptions );

+    pipe.isActiveProperty.link( isActive => {
+      this.visible = isActive;
+    } );
+
     this.valveNode = valveNode;
     // Set position related to associated cup
     this.x = pipe.position.x + MeanShareAndBalanceConstants.CUP_WIDTH + LINE_WIDTH;

[marlitas]

I met with @samreid and @zepumph and they were not fans of the above workaround.

• We want to optimize on two things:
  • a simpler API
  • a simpler implementation
• Linked elements do not contribute to the complexity of the API, though they do "clutter" studio. In weighing the pros and cons of doing the work to remove linked elements in certain scenarios it does not seem worth it.
• The "featured" option is our solution for decluttering while maintaining a straightforward implementation in the code.
• If it's not featured then we focus on maintainability, value, and simplicity.

We agreed that this is not worth pursuing further, but if designers have questions or concerns are happy to have a meeting to talk more.

[marlitas]

@amanda-phet feel free to close if there are no further requests here.