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Previous Chapter 25 The MSC Editor
The symbol menu contains the MSC symbols that are to be placed into the drawing area. It is a fixed size, non-moveable auxiliary window, associated with the drawing area and placed to the right of it. Each MSC Editor window has its own symbol menu.The symbol menu can be made invisible and visible again with a menu choice, Window Options.
All symbols appear the same appearance in the symbol menu as they do in the drawing area. For a reference to these symbols, see "MSC Symbols and Lines" on page 1305.
Figure 407 : The MSC Editor Symbol Menu.
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When managing working on a long (vertically extended) MSC, the kind of instance in the instance head may not be visible in the drawing area.
The instance ruler (illustrated in Figure 408) shows the kind of the instance heads that are not currently visible in the drawing area. It reduces the amount of scrolling up or down when working on an MSC. The instance ruler may be shown or hidden with an option (see"Instance Ruler" on page 1332).
Figure 408 : The Instance Ruler.
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The text window is pane of the MSC Editor window, as shown in Figure 409, which may be resized vertically.
Figure 409 : The MSC Editor Text Window.
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The Edit menu of the Text window provides clipboard functions.
The following text editing functions are provided in the text window:
- Point to the beginning or the end of the portion of text to be selected.
- Drag the I-beam pointer to the other end of the text to be selected. The selected text is highlighted as the mouse is moved.
- Release the mouse button.
- Point to the beginning or the end of the text to be selected and click.
- Move the I-beam pointer to the other end of the text to be selected.
- Press <Shift> and click.
A single word, delimited by spaces, is selected by double-clicking it.
One line of text is selected by triple-clicking it.
Any attempt to enter an illegal character(1) will always result in an audible warning.
The editing functions that are available depend upon the context. Some functions are standardized and are available from the Edit menu of the Text window.
Other standardized functions include:
- Positioning the cursor by clicking, or by using the arrow keys.
- Inserting characters after the current position of the I-beam pointer.
- Deleting the character preceding the I-beam pointer by pressing <Back Space>.
- Deleting the character following the I-beam pointer by pressing <Del>.
- Replacing a portion of text by selecting it and typing the new characters.
- Deleting a portion of text by selecting it and pressing <Back Space> or <Del>. (Remember, the <Del> and the <Back Space> keys have different functions according to Motif Style Guide.)
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Note: Delayed updating of the drawing area when editing
text
When text is edited, updating the drawing area is delayed until no
text editing action (mouse or keyboard operations) is performed dur
ing a period of one second.
The text window is however always updated immediately.
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The Edit menu provides the following choices, which may or may not be dimmed depending upon whether or not some text is selected:
Cut removes the selected portion of text from the text window and saves it in the clipboard buffer. Cut is only valid if a portion of text has been selected.
Copy makes a copy of the selected portion of text in the clipboard buffer. The content of the text window is not affected. Copy is only valid if a portion of text has been selected.
Paste inserts the content of the clipboard buffer into the text window. The clipboard buffer will be appended immediately following the cursor position. Paste is only valid if a portion of text has been cut or copied into clipboard buffer.
Clear removes the selected portion of text from the text window. The content of the clipboard buffer is not affected. Clear is only valid if a portion of text has been selected.
Select All selects all of the text contained in the text window.
SDT allows to tie a function key to a defined text string. When typing that defined function key, the programmed text string will be inserted at the current cursor location. Each user may customize his own programming of function keys.
The function keys are set up as X-resources. It is possible to set up both system default and user-defined X-resources, allowing each user to customize his environment. The X- resources are defined in a file that is common for all SDT users, namely
/usr/lib/X11/app-defaults/SDT
To program the function keys, insert following lines anywhere into the SDT file:
/* Any suitable comment */
SDT*XmText.translations: #override \n\
<Key>F1: insert-string("F1Text") \n\
<Key>F2: insert-string("F2Text") \n\
<Key>F3: insert-string("F3Text") \n\
<Key>F4: insert-string("F4Text") \n\
<Key>F5: insert-string("F5Text") \n\
<Key>F6: insert-string("F6Text") \n\
<Key>F7: insert-string("F7Text") \n\
<Key>F8: insert-string("F8Text") \n\
<Key>F9: insert-string("F9Text")
/* Note the absence of \n\ on line 9 */
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Note:
Omitting to define some of the function keys is permissible.
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An SDT user may define his own function keys. This is done by defining the X-resources described above in a personal copy of the definition file and to store that file it into the user's home directory:
~/username/SDT
Alternatively, any directory designated by environment variable
XAPPLRESDIR can be used.
- Only one line for each function key may be defined. Attempting to define more than one line into one function key may cause an unpredictable result when pressing that key.
For instance, it is not certain that the following line will produce the expected result:
<Key>F1: insert-string("F1Line1\nLine2") \n\
- Only the keys F1-F9 can be defined.
All textual objects managed by the MSC Editor use predefined font faces and sizes. The fonts that are assigned are determined when starting he MSC Editor, no change is possible to perform during an MSC Editor session. When printing the MSCs, SDT will use the same font face as defined for the MSC Editor.
On workstations, the availability of font faces is determined by the version of the X Windows server which are running. With a revision 5 or higher (X11 R5), scalable fonts are supported. In that case, the available list of predefined font faces would be:
- Times
- Helvetica
- Courier
- Schumacher.
The default font face is Helvetica. If scalable fonts are not supported, the font face will be replaced by a Schumacher font (which may be used in all circumstances).
The default font sizes are as follows:
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Text Object: Font Size:
Heading symbol 20 points
Other text objects 8 points
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Footnotes
- (1)
- Illegal in the sense that characters must comply to the set that is valid according to Z.120
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