made variables about the state of the view -- what pin we are showing settings for, if any; whether we are adding sensors or actuators or not showing the adding pins menu at all; and whether we are showing the pin_remove_confirmation -- in an object so that the child controllers, which get a prototypally inherited  variable, will be accessing those variables on the parent  and not on their own copy
now that i am using parent and child scope with prototypal inheritance properly, i do not have to do all that show_remove_confirmation = false everywhere. it sets the parent scope properly