IWS Hotkeys

SCADA engineers are funny. These are guys that will spend six frenzied hours hand-scripting something that will automate a ten minute process. But after all, automation is why we’re here, right? Knowing that saving ten minutes a workday will save us around forty hours a year makes it worthwhile.

If you’re doing a lot of development with IWS, even automating things you do to build your project can save you tons of time in the long run. There’s one application engineer I know of that uses a gaming mouse with 16 buttons to whiz through his projects. He does this by mapping IWS’ commands to the customizable mouse buttons.

Luckily the most common IWS commands have hotkeys already set up.

List of hotkeys for IWS

Global

F1

Opens the Technical Reference Help file

Shift+F1

Enables context sensitive Help

F2

Toggles the status bar

F4

Opens the zoom window

F5

Runs the currently loaded project

Shift+F5

Stops the running project

F10 or Alt

Enables navigational hotkeys

Ctrl+N

Create New Project

Ctrl+F4

Closes the current workspace tab

Ctrl+O

Open project file

Ctrl+S

Saves the current workspace tab

Ctrl+C

Copy

Ctrl+X

Cut

Ctrl+F

Find

Ctrl+V

Paste

Ctrl+P

Prints the current worksheet or screen

Alt+0

Toggles the Project Explorer

Alt+1

Toggles the Output Window

Alt+2

Toggles the Database Spy

Alt+F

Opens the Application (File) menu

Alt+H

Opens the Home Ribbon*

Alt+V

Opens the View Ribbon*

Alt+I

Opens the Insert Ribbon*

Alt+P

Opens the Project Ribbon*

Alt+G

Opens the Graphics Ribbon*

Alt+E

Opens the Help Ribbon*

*Another trick on quickly navigating the ribbons is by using the mouse's scroll wheel.

Workspace commands (Applies to screen/screen objects only)

Ctrl+A

Select all screen objects in current screen

Ctrl+Z

Undo the previous action

Ctrl+G

Toggles the grid

Ctrl+Num+

Bring selected object forward by one (affects object ID)

Ctrl+Num-

Send selected object backward by one (affects object ID)

Ctrl+D

Disable object dragging on the screen editor

Ctrl+

Create a copy of the selected object(s)

Shift+

Moves the selected object one pixel or grid in the direction of the arrow

Tab

Change selection to the next screen object (based on object ID)

Shift+Tab

Change selection to the previous screen object (based on object ID)

Alt+Enter

Opens the Object Properties dialog for the currently selected object


VbScript Debug Mode

F9

Set/Reset a VbScript debug breakpoint

Ctrl+F5

Starts or continues the runtime in debug mode

Ctrl+Scroll Lock

Breaks the VbScript execution

F11

Step into the VbScript debug execution

Shift+F11

Step out of the VbScript debug execution

Shift+F10

Step over the VbScript debug execution

Creating your own hotkeys

Now, let’s say there’s a task that you do regularly (such as grouping of objects) and want to automate it with a hotkey. Looking at the list above, you notice the [Group objects] command is not there. That’s not an issue, as you can create your own hotkey to issue that command.

NOTE: Most Windows software use the same process, so you can use this trick to generate your own hotkeys for other software like Word,  Excel, or any software with a Quick Access toolbar.

The Quick Access toolbar is the little “cheat bar” up at the top, above the ribbons and next to the Application Icon.

You can edit this toolbar at any time by selecting the down arrow to the right of it, and select More Commands…

This will open the Customize dialog, allowing you to add or remove any commands you want to the toolbar. However, what we want to do is create a hotkey for the [Group Objects] command, so click the Customize… button next to “Keyboard Shortcuts:”

Now we’re getting somewhere. Here you create, edit and remove the keyboard shortcuts for IWS commands. I wouldn’t recommend doing anything with the default commands, but that’s up to you.

So we want to assign the [Group Objects] command to a hotkey. The commands are for the most part categorized by Ribbon, so I know where to look. The [Group Objects] command is on the Format ribbon, so I select Format and there it is! Well, two of them. You run into this occasionally when the command is found in a couple of places in the development environment. Either one will work. If you’re not sure, check the description field at the bottom left.

Next I decide my Hotkey. seems logical, so I click in the “Press new shortcut key” field, hold down  and press the key.

OOPS! Seems that hotkey is already assigned. I try .

Perfect. I click the Assign button which moves the hotkey to the “Current Keys” field.

Now to test the command. I open a new screen and draw a few shapes on there.

With all three objects selected, I press the new  hotkey.

Tada! Now I can use that to group anything with a single command, or even map it to a custom button on a mouse or keyboard.