This chapter covers the word-processing features of HoTMetaL: undoing and redoing actions, and cutting, copying, pasting, and deleting selections.
The Undo command in the Edit menu allows the effect of the last operation to be undone.
Typing text, and any command that changes the content of the document, can be undone.Note the following actions that cannot be undone:
If you execute several Undo commands in a row you will undo the most recent action, and then undo the second most recent action, and so forth. You can undo the last 30 actions.
To reverse an Undo, you must use Redo. If you have performed several Undos, you can reverse each of them by performing an equal number of Redos. If you perform one or more Undos, and then perform an undoable action, you will no longer be able to redo any of the Undos.
If you undo a Copy or Cut command, the previous contents of the clipboard will be restored.
One of the advantages of HoTMetaL over text-based HTML editors is that you can easily select and move around parts of the document structure without having to worry about making the markup invalid. It is easy to select a whole element (and its sub-elements, if any): you just have to drag the mouse over the start-tag (from the left) or the end-tag (from the right) and the element is selected.
The Cut, Copy, Paste, and Delete commands work as they normally do in word-processing applications. The only exception to this is that in HoTMetaL, a selection can contain elements. For this reason there will be circumstances where removing or pasting a selection would cause the document to be incorrectly marked up.
If you try to do a paste that would cause the markup to become invalid, you will get a warning dialog box that gives you the opportunity to turn rules checking off if you want to continue with the paste. There are some circumstances in which you will never be able to do a paste, such as when the insertion point is inside an IMG element, which cannot contain text or markup.
Cut and Delete will be disabled if you select one of the elements HTML, HEAD, or BODY.
If you choose Select Element, the current element, including its start- and end-tags, will become highlighted.