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7.11 Fields in property dialogs

Some elements in the dialogs for viewing and editing design information also have pop-up menus. Basically four kinds of pop-up menus are available, depending on the type of the property field.

7.11.1 String and Number Fields

These fields have the same pop-up menu, including text editing and property sharing:

Share Property... opens a list of available properties of a same type for reuse. Note that when an element is created at the first time, its properties can not be shared.

Remove Sharing deletes the link between the text in the field and the property which originally had the same value. Thus, by doing sharing and then removing you can copy property values from other elements, whilst maintaining them as separate properties.

Copy stores the selected text from the field into the system text buffer.

Cut removes the selected text from the field, and stores it into the buffer.

Paste adds the text from the buffer to the current position in the field. Holding down shift while selecting paste allows you to choose from the last five entries in the buffer.

The following shortcut keys are useful:
 Ctrl-X
DEL
 Cut
 Ctrl-C
 Copy
 Ctrl-V Ctrl-j
 Paste
 Ctrl-W
 Delete word
 Ctrl-D
 Insert current date

7.11.2 Text fields

Text fields include the same functions as String and Number fields, plus an Editor... function which opens a Text Editor window similar to a Report Output tool for editing longer textual descriptions.

Shortcut keys for editing text include:
 Ctrl-X
DEL
 Cut
 Ctrl-C
 Copy
 Ctrl-V Ctrl-J
 Paste
 Ctrl-F
 Find
 F3
 Repeat find
 Ctrl-H
 Replace
 Ctrl-R
 Repeat replace
 Ctrl-W
 Delete word
 Esc-F
 Justify (remove all line breaks and tabs)
 Ctrl-D
 Insert current date
Pressing Shift while selecting paste allows you to select from the five most recent entries in the text buffer. The top entry in the buffer is also shared with the operating system, allowing you to import and export text to other applications.

Shortcut keys for setting fonts include:
 Esc-s
 Serif
 Esc-S
 Sans Serif
 Esc-b
 Bold
 Esc-B
 Not bold
 Esc-i
 Italic
 Esc-I
 Not italic
 Esc-u
 Underlined
 Esc-U
 Not underlined
 Esc-+
 Larger size
 Esc- –
 Normal size
 Esc-x
 Remove all formatting

7.11.3 Non-Property fields

Non-Property fields have a whole object, graph, role or relationship as a property. The pop-up menu includes similar functions as for a collection, except they are valid only for a single element.

Attach New Object... opens a new dialog for entering information about the object to be added.

Add Existing Object... opens a list of already defined objects to be added to the field.

Edit Object... opens a property dialog for viewing and editing information about the object.

Open Object opens a graph, if such exists, representing the non-property shown in the field.

Remove Object... deletes the element from the field.

7.11.4 Collection fields

Collection fields include a list of elements. The value of the property is the whole list. A typical example of a collection list is the attribute list of an object or a class. The pop-up menu for collection fields includes functionality for manipulating the list and its elements.

Add Element... opens a new dialog for entering information about the element added.

Add Existing... opens a list of already defined elements to be added to the list.

Edit Element... opens a property dialog for viewing and editing information about the selected element.

Open Element opens a graph, if one exists, representing the non-property element shown in the field.

Remove Element deletes the element from the list.

Move Element... allows you to move the selected element to a new position in the list.

Sort... allows you to sort the elements in the collection alphabetically.

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