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User Interactions Configuration Overview (xamDiagram)

xamDiagram User Interactions Configuration Overview

Purpose

This topic provides a summary of all user interaction tasks in the xamDiagram™ control.

Required background

The following topics are prerequisites to understanding this topic:

Topic Purpose

This topic provides a general overview of the xamDiagram control.

User Interactions Configuration Overview

xamDiagram user interactions configuration summary chart

The following table explains briefly the configurable aspects of the diagram nodes and maps them to the properties that configure them. Further details are available after the table.

Configurable aspect Details Properties

The xamDiagram provides a number of built-in commands.

The xamDiagram provides a context menu for editing properties of items.

The way users can interact with the xamDiagram via the mouse.

The xamDiagram provides an navigation pane of the whole diagram.

The xamDiagram provides functionality for selecting items.

The keyboard shortcuts used for interacting with the xamDiagram .

The xamDiagram provides an additional toolbox control for drag-and-dropping items.

The xamDiagram provides undo/redo functionality

Commands

The xamDiagram control supports a set of commands which can represent an action performed on diagram items or an interaction with the UI of the control or have some impact on its undo/redo operations history. The commands can be invoked using keyboard shortcuts, interactions with other controls, etc..

Most of the commands are associated to keyboard keys and key combinations according to the existing computing interface standards (like using Ctrl+C for copy, etc.). You can however change the keyboard shortcuts (or key combinations) by overriding them programmatically. (For details, see Configuring Keyboards Shortcuts).

Context menu

The diagram items of the xamDiagram control can be configured using the context menu functionality of the control. It is represented by an options pane which is opened upon diagram item’s (or items’) selection through a mouse click on the gear-like icon which then appears. By default, the context menu is disabled on the diagram.

Mouse interaction and tool

The xamDiagram provides a number of ways to interact with the xamDiagram using the mouse. These are configured by two properties – Tool and DefaultDragInteraction. The Tool setting determines what happens when performing a click and drag in the xamDiagram surface. The following tools are available:

  • Pointer

  • Connector

The default is Pointer. It allows a number of interactions controlled by the DefaultDragInteraction setting. The supported interactions are:

  • None

  • Zoom

  • Pan

  • Select (default)

The Connector tool allows drawing a connection by dragging over the diagram surface.

Navigation pane

The xamDiagram control has the capability to display a reduced-size overview of its full content in a separate pane positioned inside the diagram space, by default at its bottom-right corner.

Selection

The xamDiagram control provides functionality enabling the both programmatic and user-interaction selection of diagram items located on its space. There are several types of selection functionality available - single, multiple, and none, which all can be configured through a property setting. By default, multiple diagram items selection is enabled.

Keyboard shortcuts

The xamDiagram exposes a set of keyboard shortcuts associated with its commands. For a listing of all shortcuts refer to General Overview. The predefined shortcuts can be changed or removed and new ones can be defined.

Toolbox

The xamDiagram control provides functionality, which allows for drag-drop diagram items from a predefined set of shapes, directly on the diagram surface. This functionality is represented by the xamDiagramToolbox™ control. By default, it has two preconfigured shape categories: Basic Shapes and Connections which contain all currently supported diagram node types, including a node representing a label, and the two types of diagram connections.

Undo/redo

The xamDiagram control provides support for undo/redo functionality by maintaining operation’s history and executing undo/redo operations.

The Infragistics Undo/Redo Framework provides the undo/redo functionality in Ultimate UI for WPF.