This topic gives a few general hints related to editing robots in Design Studio. These hints apply to when you make changes to a robot in the Step View, to a type in the Type Editor or to a text in the Text Editor.

Copy, Paste, or Cut

Use keyboard shortcuts to cut, copy, and paste items In Design Studio.

• Ctrl-C Copy

• Ctrl-V Paste

• Ctrl-X Cut

In addition, in most lists, such as the list of finders for a step, you can use Ctrl-Shift-C to copy all items in the list.

Group and ungroup steps

To group steps, select multiple steps and click Group on the toolbar. You can also right-click a step and select from the list.

Some selections cannot be grouped. A group step must have exactly one ingoing connection and exactly one outgoing connection, and this must also hold for the selection of steps that you want to group. The only exception is when a selection of steps does not have any outgoing connection. In this case, you can group the selection, but the topmost End step must be connected to the end of the group. Take a look at the following example.

In this robot, the following are examples of steps you can group:

• All the steps
• Any single action step alone, such as Step A, Step B, etc.
• The branch point, step B, step C and the end step after step C

The following are some examples of steps you cannot group:

• the branch point and Step B (more than one outgoing connection)
• steps B, C, D and the two End steps (more than one ingoing connection)

You can select an expanded group step by either clicking (while holding down the Ctrl key) close to the connection or by including it in a drag selection.

To ungroup a step or collection of steps, select the items to ungroup and click Ungroup on the toolbar, or from the context menu on the steps.

Note The Group and Ungroup actions are inverse. If you group a selection of steps and immediately ungroup them again, the structure of the robot is unchanged.

Use expand and collapse from the toolbar to perform the action on all groups.

Use expand and collapse from the context menu to perform the action on the selected group or groups.

The Expand and Collapse options on the context menu on steps do the same, but they are restricted to the Group steps in the selection.

Drag and drop

In addition to actions, you can edit robot elements directly using drag and drop. As soon as you drag a step, special indicators appear showing valid drop locations. You can also select and move multiple steps at one time.

• To move a connection endpoint, select the connection and move the mouse to one of the handles at the end. Next, click the handle and move it to a new location. As soon as you click a handle, special indicators appear, showing where you may connect it.

• To abort a drag and drop action, move the mouse outside the robot and let go of the mouse button as shown in the following figure.

Add a new connection

You can also create new connections using the mouse. Place the cursor near the end of a step so that an indicator appears (an orange circle with a green halo). Click the indicator and a new arrow appears. Keep the left mouse button pressed; move the mouse and a new connection will follow your mouse when you move it. New indicators appear and you can move the mouse to drop the new connection end point by releasing the left mouse button.

Undo and redo changes

While editing a robot, you can undo and redo every action. Click or select Ctrl-Z to undo an action. Similarly, click or select Ctrl-Y to redo an action.

Step validation

As you edit your robot, the Robot View validates each step. Invalid steps are underlined in red. You can move the mouse to an invalid step to view an explanation of error.

Add favorite steps to the Insert Step menu

While editing a robot, you might use some steps more than others. To minimize the time needed to insert your favorite steps, you can add them directly to the Insert Step menu. To add steps to the Insert Step menu, open the Robot Editor tab in the Design Studio Settings dialog box. To add steps to the list, click under Favorite Steps and select steps. To remove steps from the list, select one or more steps and click . To reorder steps, select a step and move it up and down the list using arrows.