Pyroluna.. thank you for your response.
The hidden / nested components won't purge because the main component is being used in the model.
I have also tried using different layers to turn things on and off, but they (meaning various hidden mullions) still show up in the report I generate even though they're not visually shown.
The only way I've been able to get around this, is to go into the outliner window and manually delete any nested component that is hidden (or greyed out) then if I run a report, the hidden nested components will not be included in the newly generated report. It's just a manual way of doing something I thought I could/should be able to control automatically.
thanks again..

I am currently building a dynamic component of a storefront glazing system. you can set the overall size, decide if you want vertical mullions and the number of them, horizontal Mullions and set the heights. so far everything seems to work great Visually. (as far as I've taken it)
what I have a problem with is, If I have a punched opening with no mullions, say 4' square, and generate a report for length and quanity of peices, the mullions (both vertical and horizontal) still show up in the report. This does make sense because they really do exist in the parent component, just hidden. Can they be loaded only if required? I thought I might be able to use the "choose" function or an "If" statement to load these Individual components, but the function tutorials on the 3dwarehouse are not quite sinking in. I did asked this question before in the Newbie section, but thought I'd give this forum a try.
Thanks for any help.

Thanks for the reply rob.. Yes the nested components (Vertical and Horiz. Mullions) do exist in the main component. I thought by hiding them, it would be more like a "Exist/don't exist" scenerio. Everything works great visually it's just when I generate a report all these pieces show up. what I guess I need to do is find a way to make these sub-component exist or not exist, maybe with an If-Then statement.. I'm not a programmer so I haven't had any luck yet.
Thanks again Rob.

Hello.. this is my first post, Been lurking and reading for a little while and purchased sketchup Pro. Gone through a few books, bounced my head off the desk a few times, but very happy to be a part of this community.
My question is this.. I've built a dynamic component which is a storefront. I have it where it can give me just about what I'm looking for.. multiple vertical mullions, a couple horizontal mullions (user defined hts.) The purpose of this will be to get a BOM from it eventually. Well.. feeling pretty good about what I had done, for some reason I turned off the vertical and horizontal mullions and generated a report only to see a vertical and 2 horizontal mullions listed! I didn't think the report would show anything that was turned off. I know they're in the component.. they have to be to be turned on and copied.. but is this normal? again, it seems to me if any nested components are turned off it shouldn't be in a report. Having things in a report that aren't suppose to be there, doesn't help me at all.
any suggestions?
thanks in advance.