how to skip a form element in a dependency chain

Hi,

I have the following situation:

dropdownlist1 with choices (A, B, C , D)

autocomplete2 depends on dropdownlist1 if the user selects A, B, or C

dropdownlist2 depends on autocomplete2 if the user selected A,B,C OR depends on dropdownlist1 if the user chose D

The actual example is 3 ways of selecting a species (common name, scientific name, ID) or include all species in dropdownlist1. For include all species, I would not need an autocomplete that lets the user select a name or ID, I could go to the next selection step in dropdownlist2.

What I've tried so far:

• Use a combination of dependency for A/B/C and activate dropdownlist2 if D is selected - the enable property does not seem to be what dependOn works on? it's always set to true, even when not active
• Create a fake hidden autocomplete for D and make a selection pro grammatically - I failed at the point where I can set a current element item in the autocomplete, but I cannot submit it to trigger the dependency to activate dropdownlist2 (this seems to be the most promising - suggestions?)
• Branching off multiple form elements that depend on dropdownlist1 - created too many branches as this situation is repeated with other selection criteria later in the chain
• Creating the dependsOn logic programmatically - I'll have a chain of about 8 elements that depend on each other with multiple choices, collections that would all need to be cleared if anything in the hierarchy above is reset etc. - would like to avoid this since dependsOn generally works so well.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know.