|
Operations
ConceptDraw offers a variety of ways of working with shapes. You can change shape properties, assign text and hyperlinks, rotate and resize shapes and many more.
Selecting a Shape
To work with a shape, you need to select it. Selected shapes are surrounded by a dashed green or blue line which shows the shape's alignment box.
In most cases, the Select mode is used for selecting shapes. To switch to the Select mode, use any of the following ways:
- click on the Select button
 on the toolbar
- choose Select in the Tools menu
- or use the keyboard: Ctrl + 1
To select a shape, just click it with the mouse.
When you select a shape, it also shows handles which you can drag to modify some properties of the shape.
Handles vary with the type of the shape and the tool which is currently active on the toolbar. Here you can see how an ellipse looks if selected in different tool modes: Select, Line, Arc.
Multiple Selection
To select several shapes at a time, click them one by one, holding down the Shift key. To deselect one of the selected shapes, hold down Shift and click this shape again (this can be done for Select Box as well, see below).
In the Select or Rotate  tool modes, you can also use Select Box for selecting multiple shapes. Click the mouse beyond all the shapes you want to select, and while holding down the mouse button, drag it across the shapes to embrace them with a box. All the shapes touched by the resulting thin-line box will appear selected.
To select all the shapes on the page, choose Select All from the Edit menu.
Also you can use the hotkey Ctrl + A
The Select Connected command from the Edit menu allows to select all shapes, connected to the currently selected shape with connectors.
To cancel the selection, click outside the selected shapes.
Primary and Secondary Selection
When several shapes are selected, one of them displays green handles: this is the primary selected shape. All the other selected shapes show blue handles: they are secondary selected shapes.
Some operations distinguish between the primary shape and the secondary selected shapes. They use the primary shape as a model for other shapes (Align, Distribute, etc). Other operations such as Information, Hyperlink, Connection Point, work with the primary shape only, and ignore the rest.
You can reassign the primary shape - click another selected shape to make it primary (it will display green handles).
Selecting Shapes Inside a Group
It's also possible to select shapes that are part of a group.
To do this, select the group first and then click on a shape inside the group to select that shape. If the group contains other groups you may need to click a few times until you select the desired shape.
For more comfortable editing (moving, rotating, reshaping, adding or deleting elements), you can use the group editing window. Use the Edit Group command under the Shape menu. The group will be opened in a separate window, where you can edit it as if it were ungrouped.
Selecting Shapes in the Order they were Created
You can also use the Tab key to select shapes. Each time you hit Tab, you select shapes in the order in which they were created or dropped on the page, starting from the currently selected shape. The program will adjust the document page each time you press Tab, so that the selected shape is shown in the center of the screen. If no shape is selected, hitting Tab will select the first shape you have drawn or dropped on the page.
You can also use the Select Next command under the Edit menu with the same result.
Holding down the Shift key when hitting Tab reverses the selection order - so does Select Previous under the Edit menu.
Copying and Pasting
You can exchange information between ConceptDraw and other applications by using the Clipboard. The Clipboard is a temporary storage area used by the system to transfer data between documents and applications. By using the Cut, Copy and Paste commands, you can copy the selected text or shapes onto the Clipboard and then insert it to another location.
Cut and Copy
The Copy command creates a copy of the selected shapes or text and places it onto the Clipboard.
Use Copy tool  on the toolbar, or select Copy from the Edit menu.
Also you can use the hotkeys: Ctrl + C, Ctrl + Ins
Once there is some data on the Clipboard, it can be inserted into the same document, or other documents and applications.
The Cut command combines two operations: Copy and Delete. It places the selected items on the Clipboard, and then deletes them from the document. To use this command, choose Cut from the Edit menu, or click the Cut button  on the toolbar.
Also you can use the hotkeys: Ctrl + X, Shift + Del
Paste
The Paste command inserts the content of the Clipboard into the cursor position. To perform the command, select Paste from the Edit menu, or use the Paste tool  on the toolbar.
Also you can use the hotkeys: Ctrl + V, Shift + Ins
Note: If you paste an object created in another OLE-compatible application, it will be inserted as an OLE Object.
»
| 
