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.