3.3 Performing editing functions

This section discusses commands available in the Edit menu of any window. These commands fall into five areas:

• Undoing changes.
• Using the clipboard.
• Selecting text and objects.
• Searching for text.
• Substituting text.

3.3.1 Undoing changes

You can undo changes made in a tool using Edit > Undo. This facility is most useful in the Editor and Listener - see 12.9 Other essential commands for more details.

3.3.2 Using the clipboard

You can use the clipboard to transfer data between tools, or even between the LispWorks IDE and other applications that you are running. There are three commands available, as follows:

• Choose Edit > Copy to put the selected item or text from the active pane onto the clipboard.
• Choose Edit > Cut to put the selected item or text from the active pane onto the clipboard and remove it from the active pane.
• Choose Edit > Paste to replace the selected item or text in the active pane with the contents of the clipboard.

Use of Copy or Cut followed by Paste lets you transfer items between tools, or to different parts of the same tool.

Unlike the clipboard in many other applications, the LispWorks IDE clipboard can contain a Common Lisp object. This makes the LispWorks IDE clipboard an exceptionally powerful tool, allowing you to pass objects between different tools in the environment so that they can be examined in different ways.

If the clipboard contains a Lisp object and you use the Paste command on a pane that only accepts text, then the object's printed representation will be pasted.

There are several ways to use these commands:

• In the Editor, you can Copy chunks of text and Paste them into different places, either within the same file or between different files. If you have sections of code which are very similar, rather than typing each section out explicitly, just Paste in the same section as many times as you need and change only the relevant parts. 12.11 Cutting, copying and pasting using the kill ring describes a number of more sophisticated methods that can be used in the Editor.
• In the Class Browser's Hierarchy view (for example), you can Copy a selected class from the Superclasses pane to the clipboard and then Paste it into another tool. Because the Common Lisp object itself is copied to the clipboard, it is treated usefully according to the tool. For instance, if you paste it into an Inspector using Edit > Object > Paste Object, then the class is inspected. If you paste it into an editor however, the class name is simply pasted as text.

As well as the menu commands, you can use the , and buttons in the toolbar, for Cut, Copy and Paste respectively.

Note: You can also transfer data within the environment using the standard actions commands described in 3.8 Performing operations on selected objects.

3.3.3 Using the Object operations with the clipboard

You can use the clipboard to transfer a tool's "primary object" between tools. There are three commands available, as follows:

• Choose Edit > Object > Copy Object to put the selection or "primary object" onto the clipboard.
• Choose Edit > Object > Cut Object to put the selection or "primary object" onto the clipboard and remove it from the tool it was copied from.
• Choose Edit > Object > Paste Object to put the contents of the clipboard into the current tool.

Use of Copy Object or Cut Object followed by Paste Object lets you transfer items between tools, or to different parts of the same tool. There are several ways to use these commands:

• In the Class Browser (for example) you can Copy Object the class to the clipboard and then Paste Object it into another tool. Because the Common Lisp object itself is copied to the clipboard, it is treated usefully according to the tool. For instance, if you paste it into an Inspector, it is inspected. If you paste it into an editor however, the class name is simply pasted as text.
• Between any of the tools, you can Cut Object, Copy Object, and Paste Object Common Lisp objects. You can, for instance, make an instance of a class in the Listener, inspect it by Values > Inspect, and then Copy Object it in the Inspector, and then Paste Object it into a Class Browser to examine its class.
• If you have several Common Lisp objects which you want to keep track of, store them in the Object Clipboard. You can do this by a Clip command in tools such as the Class Browser, or by Edit > Object > Paste Object in the Object Clipboard tool. See 8 The Object Clipboard for more information about that tool.

Note: You can also transfer data within the environment using the standard actions commands described in 3.8 Performing operations on selected objects.

the LispWorks IDE also interacts with the standard system clipboard, so that data can be transferred to or from applications other than Lisp. To do this, the system and the LispWorks IDE clipboards are kept in synchronization all the time, as follows:

• Whenever a Common Lisp object is copied to the LispWorks IDE clipboard, its string representation is copied onto the system clipboard.
• Whenever a string is copied to the system clipboard, it is copied onto the LispWorks IDE clipboard as a string.

3.3.4 Selecting text and objects

Choose Edit > Select All or Edit > Deselect All to select or deselect all the text in an Editor or Listener window, or all the items in a list or graph. These commands are useful whenever there is too much information to be able to select items one at a time.

These commands operate on the active pane of the current tool.

3.3.5 Searching for text and objects

You can search for and change text in most tools using Edit > Find..., Edit > Find Next, and Edit > Replace....

Choose Edit > Find... to find an item in the current tool (this might be a piece of text, or a fragment of Common Lisp, or an object, depending on the tool). You must supply an item to find in the dialog that appears.

Choose Edit > Find Next if you want to search for the next occurrence of an item you have already found. This command does not prompt you for an item to find, and so is only available if you have already found something.

Choose Edit > Replace... if you want to replace one string of text with another. A dialog box prompts you for a text string to find, and a text string to replace it with. This command is only available in the Editor and the Listener, and is most useful in the Editor.

These commands operate on the active pane of the current tool.