Editing Diagrams with the Keyboard

Recent Cradle releases have added new keyboard shortcuts to the Diagram Editor (DGE) in the Cradle Toolset that allow diagrams to be manipulated through the keyboard. For some people, this is quicker than using the mouse.

Moving Symbols

Symbols can be moved by selecting them and pressing the Cursor Up, Cursor Down, C ursor Left and Cursor Right keys. For example, starting with the diagram:

in which Electrical Distribution is selected, pressing Cursor Up moves the selected symbol upwards by a small amount to produce:

Corresponding effects occur if the other cursor keys are pressed.

Larger movements occur if the Shift key is held at the same time as pressing the cursor key. Starting with the same diagram as before and pressing Shift and Cursor Up moves the selected symbol a greater distance, to produce:

The normal method of moving symbols in the DGE is to select them and use the middle mouse button (or rollerwheel if your mouse has one, or press both mouse buttons together if your mouse only has two buttons and does not have a rollerwheel). You can re-map these mouse button operations if you want to. The DGE provides three types of move operation:

• Normal move, where symbols are moved and the connections between them move too
• Tied move, where connections’ routepoints keep the same relative distance to the symbols being moved (press Alt or Meta at the same time as the mouse button)
• Object only move, where the connections between symbols are not moved, only the symbols being moved are actually moved (press Ctrl at the same time as the mouse button)

You can also use these other types of move operation with the cursor keys. For example, starting with the diagram as before and pressing Ctrl and Shift and Cursor Up produces:

in which Electrical Distribution has moved upwards a large amount, but its connections have not moved at all.

If you find the keyboard faster than the mouse, try using these cursor key operations on your diagrams, we think you will find they make editing diagrams much faster than before.

Manipulating Branches

Some diagram types are time-sequenced, in which functions or operations are distributed along a timeline. The timeline can be branched and sub-branched using parallel, option and iteration constructs that are indicated by nodes (small circles) labelled AND, OR, I and R.

The DGE provides specific functionality to select and manipulate whole branches in timelines starting with the ability to group-select a branch, when it is shown highlighted in red:

The entire branch can be moved and reordered using the Construct pulldown menu and the arrow buttons in the bottom-left corner of the DGE window. Now, it can also be manipulated with the Cursor Up, Cursor Down, Page Up and Page Down keys.

Pressing Cursor Down will move the entire branch down, moving the lower branch too:

Similarly, pressing Cursor Up will move the entire branch up again:

Pressing Page Down will reorder the selected branch downwards, so that the order of the branches is changed and the selected branch becomes the bottom-most branch:

Similarly, pressing Page Up twice will reorder the selected branch upwards twice, so that it becomes the top-most branch:

You can change the selected branch by pressing Ctrl and the cursor keys. Pressing Ctrl and Cursor Down twice will select first the middle branch and then the bottom-most branch:

You can also move the selection inwards and outwards. Pressing Ctrl and Cursor Right will move the selection from the whole branch to the first of the sub-branches between the OR nodes:

Now pressing Ctrl and Cursor Down will select the other branch between the OR nodes:

Pressing Ctrl and Cursor Up will select the upper of the OR branches, and pressing Ctrl and Cursor Left will restore the selection to the bottom-most of the AND branches.

Thus Ctrl and Cursor Right moves the group-selection inwards a level of sub-branch, if there is one, and Ctrl and Cursor Left moves the group-selection outwards a level, if there is one.

Using these keyboard controls makes the selection, moving and reordering of branches in diagrams with timelines must faster.

Operation Shortcuts

There are keyboard shortcuts for all of the common DGE operations:

• A - align selected symbols horizontally and/or vertically
• Ctrl-c - copy selected symbol(s)
• C - collapse the current diagram or selected symbols(s), go to parent diagram
• O - contract diagram symbols inwards around selected symbol(s)
• Ctrl-x - cut selected symbol(s)
• I - access the definition of the selected symbol
• Delete - delete the selected symbols, optionally the hierarchy below them
• B - distribute selected symbols horizontally and/or vertically
• Ctrl-u - duplicate selected symbol(s)
• E - expand select symbol, go to the child diagram
• Ctrl-f - find a symbol
• Q - insert a new symbol into a currently-selected connection
• W - push selected symbols to a lower diagram (only for some diagram types)
• M - merge selected symbols into a single symbol (only for some symbol types)
• Ctrl-v - paste symbols, optionally the hierarchy below them
• Ctrl-p - print the diagram using the current print options
• H - refresh the diagram, clear and redraw it
• R - rename the selected symbol
• N - renumber the selected diagram symbol
• P - replace a symbol by a symbol of a different type (subject to syntax rules)
• Z - resize a symbol
• V - reverse the direction of a connection
• Ctrl-a - select all symbols in the diagram
• S - spread diagram symbols outwards around selected symbol(s)
• X - split a selected connection (only for some symbol types)
• T - traverse the selected connection to its source or destination diagram
• Ctrl-z - undo

To change these shortcuts select Tools -> Customise -> Keyboard Definitions… which displays the Keyboard Options dialogue:

To change a shortcut, enter the name of the key to be pressed, noting that:

• a and A mean different things, the former means a lowercase a and the latter means a capital a, that is pressing Shift and a at the same time
• Use ^ to mean the Ctrl key, so entering ^u means to press the Ctrl and u keys at the same time

You can select OK and experiment with the settings to see if like them. When you want to save them, return to the Keyboard Options dialogue, select Write… and click OK.