Basic interaction
Interaction Techniques


The following operations are described for a right-handed user using a mouse as input device. They are reversible for left-handed users, and other input devices can be used instead of a mouse.

Possible separate hand operations are:

Moving, resizing, panning, etc

See also Resize, pan and zoom and Move and pan, multiple views.

Moving

To move an object, press down the left button on the mouse and drag the object to the new position (similar to most other graphic editors). When move is "active", the cursor is changed to the move cursor.

Moving a binder

Objects that can be moved are:

Dragging from index

To open a page, tool palette, declaration etc. from the index, press and drag with the left button on the corresponding index entry.

Dragging a page to a binder

Page to front

To bring a page, group, or tool palette to front in a binder, click on the tab at the top of the page or palette, or on the group tab at the bottom of the page.

Bringing a group to front

Open index entries

By clicking on the small triangles in the index, users can open and close the index entries. The triangles flash briefly in green when they expand/collapse.

Opening a net entry in the index

Commands and tools

Pick up/drop a tool

By clicking with the left button of the mouse on a tool in a tool palette, users can pick up tools in the hand or drop them again. When there is a tool in the hand, the cursor shows which tool it is. See also Palettes.

A tool palette

Apply a tool

When a tool is in the hand, it can be applied by clicking on an appropriate object with the left mouse button.

Marking menus

Many commands in CPN Tools are accessible through marking menus, i.e. circular, context-sensitive pop-up menus. A number of objects in CPN Tools have a marking menus (see marking menu tools) - they appear when the right mouse button is pressed over the object. Each marking menu command is also accessible through a palette tool as described in the entries under marking menu tools.

Long click

While a tool is in the hand, it is still possible to move objects, pan, bring pages to front, etc. This is then done with a long click, i.e. by pressing and holding down the mouse button until the cursor changes to indicate that e.g. an object can be moved. When the operation is done, the tool cursor returns to the hand and the tool can be used as before.

Color tool cursor Move cursor

Text input

Text input is activated by clicking or long clicking (see long click) on a text object or an object with inscriptions. A number of objects can be text edited:

Inscriptions

Inscriptions on places, transitions, and arcs are edited by clicking on the inscription or on the object with the inscription. See add/edit inscriptions.

Declarations

Declarations are accessible through the index and can be edited here by clicking on them or in a sheet by dragging them out to the workspace. See add/edit declarations.

Net names

The name of a net can be edited in the index by clicking on it. This will save the net under the new name. See save net as.

Page names

The name of net pages can be edited in the index by clicking on them. The name will be updated in the page tabs if the page is open in a binder.

Keyboard shortcuts

When you are text editing declarations, it is possible to use keyboard shortcuts to navigate the declarations and create new declarations (TAB and Ctrl-Enter, resp.). This makes it possible to create a number of declarations without removing the hands from the keyboard. See add/edit declarations.

Similarly, when editing inscriptions around places or transitions, you can use the TAB key to jump to another inscription. See add/edit inscriptions.

When editing text, the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl-c, Ctrl-x, and Ctrl-v can be used to copy, cut, and paste, respectively. The keyboard shortcut Ctrl-e can be used to apply the Evaluate ML tool to some texts.

After picking up a tool from a palette, the tool can be dropped by pressing the escape (Esc) key.

There are no keyboard shortcuts for other commands in CPN Tools.

One-button devices

Currently, CPN Tools is designed solely for two-button input devices. This means that some types of interaction are not possible with a one-button device, e.g. interaction through marking menus. If your input device has only one button and no way of simulating a "right-button" click, you can still use CPN Tools, although your interaction options are somewhat limited. Almost all commands in CPN Tools are accessible through various interaction techniques, and you can see on the How-to page. Note, however, that Undo/Redo is currently NOT available outside of the marking menus.

A later version might support one-button devices - follow the version progress on the Releases page.