IBM Rhapsody Tip #79 - Some shortcuts you may or may not know! (Simple)

We're all creatures of habit, I guess, hence we tend to find our own ways of doing these and sometimes it's not always the fastest. This short (and mostly silent) tips and tricks video for the IBM Rational Rhapsody UML/SysML tool came off the back of a recent webinar I did with IBM where somebody pointed out a shortcut I don't use for one of the menus that I use all the time. This made me think that a little video on shortcuts would be a good refresher for people. The video covers some "accelerators" (keys that perform actions) and modifiers (keys that modify actions) that you may or may not know.

Here's the transcript:

This short (and mostly silent) tips and tricks video came off the back of a recent webinar I delivered where an ex-IBM colleague commented about his favourite Rhapsody shortcut and I thought, why don't I use that? Anyway, here's a small selection to refresh our minds ;-)

Rhapsody includes various keyboard shortcuts (also known as accelerators). An accelerator key is a key (or combination of keys) designed to achieve a specific action.

Some of these are common to Windows applications but others may be specific to Rhapsody features such as diagram editing or controlling the workspace.

E.g., Edit > Select > Select Same Type is one of the tucked away menus I use a lot in Rhapsody! Ctrl+Alt+T is the shortcut for Select Same Type.

Ctrl+Alt+T selects all the elements of the same type, useful for using the Layout toolbar to align or space elements

Multi-select also enables you to set common display options, e.g., to show Description compartment in all the selected graph elements.

Ctrl+L is Navigate > Locate in browser.

Modifying with Shift, i.e. Ctrl+Shift+L, will Navigate > Locate on diagram.

If a diagram is selected then Ctrl+P will launch the print dialog.

Less familiar, did you know that Ctrl+R, will display the References for a selected element?

Rhapsody's Enhanced Tooltip is sometimes a useful feature (and sometimes not)...

There's some shortcut clues down here...

E.g., Ctrl+F2 will persisted the Enhanced Tooltip window.

Ctrl+Alt+F2 will toggle enhanced tooltip on and off.

Shift+Alt+F2 and it's off.

Shift+Alt+F2 again and it's on.

Another useful toggle is Ctrl+0 (zero). Ctrl+0 will hide/show the browser.

If we want to reset our workspace window layout then Ctrl+W will Window > Arrange Options.

Modifiers change the behavior of a command.

E.g. Delete will normally Remove from View, i.e. element is still in model!

Adding the Ctrl modifier, i.e., Ctrl+Delete, will Delete from model.

Modifiers also work with other commands

E.g. Ctrl+F is a conventional Windows shortcut for launching a Search dialog.

Shift+Ctrl+F will modify to Search in Diagram...

There are more, of course. However, do you know the shortcut for zoom to fit?

F6 will Zoom to fit for a diagram.













... and the Shift modifier, i.e., Shift+F6, does Undo Zoom to go back.