By using the Shortcut Keys the process of designing a form will be much quicker and easier to accomplish.
Edit > Shortcut Keys
Click on a Command to jump to that section.
Align Commands¶
The align commands allows the designer to quick arrange objects on the canvas next to one another.
For the align commands lets start by putting two text boxes on the canvas.
Once the text boxes have been placed click select
Now either click and hold the left mouse button and drag a box around the two text boxes or hold down the Ctrl button on the keyboard and left click on both of the boxes to select them both.
You will notice that one of the boxes is going to be highlighted in yellow and the other one in blue. This tells us what text box is the control or one that we are aligning off of. Whatever is yellow is the control and whatever is blue will be what is moving to align.
In order to change the control, simply left click on the blue text box. it will highlight that one in yellow instead.
Align Left
Now that we have our control set we are going to perform the Align left command by holding down the Ctrl button and pressing the left key on the keyboard.
This will align all the blue highlighted objects to the left edge of the control (yellow highlighted object)
It is also possible to align left by highlighting your objects and clicking Edit > Left Align in the Forms Designer Menu bar
Align Top
Let's reset and go back to our 2 text boxes that were just placed on the canvas
To perform a top align first make sure all objects desired to be aligned are selected
Now hold down the Ctrl button and press the up key.
The objects now all have the same Top property value.
You can also align Top by clicking Edit > Top Align from the FD menu bar
Align Right
Align right works identically to Align Left except that it is setting the right edge of the control as the edge the rest of the selected objects are aligning to.
Highlight all objects that you want aligned
Hold down the Crtl + the Right arrow key
All the selected objects will be aligned to the right edge of the control
You are also able to access this command by going to Edit > Right Align
Align Stack
Align Stack works differently than the other align commands. It orders based on how the objects are selected.
First place multiple objects on the canvas. For this demonstration I am going to number the text boxes I am putting on the canvas 1-4 to allow for more clarity.
Hold down Ctrl and press the Down Arrow
This is going to align the text boxed top to bottom by looking at their top values.
The lower edge of the control is aligning to the next object below it by height value. It will place the top of the next object 5 units below the bottom of the object above it.
You will notice that the objects still seem disorganized, this is where the align left or right comes in handy. Press Crtl + Left Arrow
Now that they are a little more organized we can see that they are stacked neatly from top to bottom.
If we want to reverse the order of what is stacked all we would need to do is select the text boxes in the reverse order from bottom to top.
I want the order to be top to bottom 4,3,2,1.left click on the text boxes in this order. 1,2,3,4 so that text box 4 is the highlighted yellow control when you are done.
Now lets hit align stack again (ctrl + down arrow)
The objects stacked in reverse because of the order that we selected the objects in. It stacks from most recent selection on top to oldest selection on bottom.
You can also Align Stack by using the Edit> Stack Align
Copy/Paste Selected
The Copy/Paste Selected command is different than the standard computer copy/ paste commands.
You first need to select the object or objects that you would like duplicated.
Press Ctrl and the " V " button on your keyboard.
All of the property fields are duplicated except for Reference, ID, and Name.
Note: Use caution when using the copy/paste command. If an object or objects from a group are copied, the copied objects retain the group number and are still a part of that group. This is rarely desired and can cause items to be created on the form that cannot be deleted entirely. Instead of copying grouped controls (grids and lists), modify the grid/list separately and use the grid/list placement tool to add more to the form. (See also:
Forms Designer - Open Grid &
Forms Designer - Open List )
You can also duplicate the selected objects by clicking on Edit> Copy/Paste Selected in the menu bar.
Remove Last Control
This is used to remove the items that you have placed on the canvas in the reverse order then they were placed in.
Note: This not a typical Undo button as it only will remove items or groups of items that have been recently placed. Now press Ctrl and "Z" on the keyboard
An object disappears from the canvas.
Press Ctrl+Z again
Each time you press the keys, the last object placed will be removed from the canvas or the object with the highest ctrl value. It is different than the delete button in that it doesn't place it in the Hidden layer if it is assigned to a group, it removes the control entirely.
Note: If the form has been saved at some point then only the objects placed on the canvas since the save can be removed by this method. In order to remove something that was placed prior you would need to use the
Delete commmand.
You can also remove the last object by using the button in the menu bar Edit>Remove Last Selected
Move 10 Units
A large part of the Forms Designer is moving and aligning objects on the Canvas so they are lined up with other items.
Then press the arrow keys on the keyboard in the direction that you want the object to move.
Each of the 4 arrow keys will move the object 10 units in the corresponding direction.
Move 1 Unit
The second way to move an object with the arrow keys is one unit at a time for fine tuning your alignment.
Select a object.