Using Function Keys and Shortcut Keys

You can use the keyboard to perform functions in the Jade Platform development environment.

The keyboard shortcut commands in the editor pane follow standard conventions.
Move a class to a new superclass or copy or move a method to another class by holding down the Ctrl or Shift key and dragging the class or method to the required class.
Press Ctrl+Home to move a list box or table with an associated collection to the first entry in the collection. Conversely, press Ctrl+End to move the display to the last entry in the collection.

Pressing the Home key on a list box or table moves the display to the first entry that has been loaded in the control. Pressing the End key moves the display to the last entry currently loaded in the control. Using the Ctrl key for a list box or table that does not have a collection attached has the same result as pressing the Home or End key without the Ctrl key.
To display the Painter form of the Form subclass selected in the Class List of the Class Browser, right‑click on the Painter toolbar button.
If you have set a Schema View, right‑click on the Browse Classes toolbar button to display a Class Browser for that Schema View.

You can change most of the development environment and editor shortcut keys to values of your choice; for example, changing the editor Ctrl+S key binding (Insert Syntax) to the Save function. The exceptions are editor pane accelerator key bindings, standard Windows functionality shortcuts (for example, for copy, paste, and undo actions), and Windows form shortcuts. In addition, you cannot:

Add a shortcut to a menu item that does not have a shortcut defined in the Jade Painter
Change the key accelerator in the caption of a menu item; for example, &File to F&ile

Visual Studio uses the F9 key to set breakpoints, by default, and uses the F5 key to run and continue debug execution. Jade uses the F5 key to set breakpoints and the F9 key to run and continue debug execution. Switching between the two development environments can lead to confusion and frustration when using the F5 and F9 keys. You can swap the F9 and F5 accelerator key bindings, by checking the Swap F5 (Toggle Breakpoint) and F9 (Execute/Continue) accelerators check box on the Short Cut Keys sheet on the Preferences dialog. This check box is unchecked by default (that is, false).

You can swap the F11 and F12 accelerator key bindings (for example, if you want the F12 key in the Jade editor pane to have a similar meaning to F12 in Visual Studio, where the definition of the selected symbol is displayed), by checking the Swap F11 (Show Symbol/Open class browser) and F12 (New Window/Bookmark) accelerators check box on the Short Cut Keys sheet on the Preferences dialog. This check box is unchecked by default (that is, false).

The key bindings are saved in your user profile and can be extracted to a preferences initialization file by using the existing Export Preferences functionality provided on the Miscellaneous sheet of the Preferences dialog.

For details about configuring Jade shortcut keys, see "Maintaining Shortcut Keys" under "Setting User Preferences", later in this chapter. For details about using the F9 function key to run a unit test, see "Running a Unit Test", in Chapter 4.