Chapter Twelve

Grouping Actions

How to Organize Related Actions in an Application File

The Group action allows you to organize actions within the file by grouping related actions and naming the group.

The topics in this chapter cover:

• working with action groups
• executing grouped actions.

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About Grouped Actions

In large Tango application files, it is common to place a number of related actions together; however, when viewing an application file it can be difficult to locate the related actions. To allow you to organize actions within the file better, you can group related actions and name the group. They also provide a destination for branching.

For more information, see "Application File Window".

You can view grouped actions in a collapsed or expanded state. Groups added to an application file are in the expanded state by default. The collapsed or expanded state of an action group is saved in the application file. When the file is next opened, the last state is restored.

You can also include an action group within another action group.

You cannot associate action attributes with an action group. When you select a group, Results HTML, No Results HTML, Error HTML and Push attributes are disabled.

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Working With Action Groups

Adding an Action Group

To add an action group to an application file

• From the Actions bar, drag the Group icon to anywhere in the application file.
• Select the actions you want to group together, and choose Group from the Edit menu or the context-sensitive menu.

A new action group containing all selected actions is created and positioned where the top-most selected action was.

Note: You can select discontiguous actions in the application file and drag them into a group; the actions do not need to be together already.

For more information, see "Naming an Action".

Once added, the action group appears with a default name, just like other actions. You rename action groups in the same way you rename other actions. Just like action names, the action group name must be unique within the application file.

Adding an Action to a Group

To add an action to a group

To add an action to a group, do one of the following.

• Drag an action between two actions that are already in the group.

The action is added to the group at that location.

• Drag an action onto the group icon.

The action is added to the bottom of the group.

• Use the Copy and Paste commands to copy and paste an action into a group.

Removing an Action From a Group

To remove an action from a group

Drag the action you want to remove outside the group.

If you drag the action above or below the group, the action appears immediately before or after the group, respectively.

Note: Removing actions from a group does not delete the group, even if all actions are removed from the group.

Ungrouping Actions

To ungroup all actions with a group

Do either of the following:

• Select the Group action.
• Choose Ungroup from the Edit menu or from the context-sensitive menu.

This deletes the group action but keeps the actions that were within the group.

Deleting an Action Group

You delete an action group and all actions within it the same way you delete any action.

For more information, see "Deleting an Action".

Effect on Actions of Editing an Action Group

Moving an action group automatically moves all actions within the group with it.

Copying an action group copies all actions within the group as well.

Deleting an action group deletes the action group and all actions within the group.

Branching to an Action Group

You can specify an action group as the destination of a Branch action.

For more information, see "Jumping to a Designated Action (Branch Action)".

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Executing Grouped Actions

When Tango Server encounters an action group during file execution, no operation is performed on the action group itself, only on the actions within the group.

For more information, see "Exiting a Loop (Break Action)".

Even though an action group has no effect on the execution of an application file, Tango Server supports the ability to branch to an action group and the ability to break out of an action group. If a Break action is encountered within a group, the next statement to be executed is the first statement outside of the group.