Welcome again to another BizTalk Server Best Practices, Tips, and Tricks blog post! In my previous blog posts, I discussed some essential tips and tricks for BizTalk Server administrators:
- #1 What do RosettaNet, ESB, and UDDI have in common?
- #2 BizTalk MarkLog tables
- #5 Tracking Data enabled
- #6 Maintaining Archiving Folders
- #11 Duplicate BizTalk Server Ports
- #12 Export Bindings of a Single Port
- #17 Delete BizTalk Database Backups files from the local drive
And for BizTalk Server Developers:
- #3 Creating Custom Functoids
- #4 The Database Lookup Functoid
- #7 Automatically Generate XSD Schemas
- #8 Another way to validate CSV structures
- #9 Visual Studio BizTalk Server Deployment properties
- #10 Visual Studio BizTalk Server Signing Properties
- #13 Stop using BizTalk Config file to store application configurations
- #14 Understand Orchestration Persistence Points
- #15 Using External Custom XSLT files
- #16 Using prefixes in inline XSLT scripts
Today, we are going to switch and speak about another critical Best practice, Tips, and Tricks, this time for BizTalk Server developers: Orchestration Designer Shortcut Keys
📝 One-Minute Brief
Working with BizTalk Server orchestrations can be faster and more efficient when you know the right shortcuts. This article lists the most useful Orchestration Designer keyboard shortcuts, helping developers work more productively when designing and maintaining BizTalk orchestrations.
#18 Orchestration Designer Shortcut Keys
Orchestration Designer Keyboard Accessibility
The Orchestration Designer design surface provides full keyboard accessibility. You can access the design surface in Visual Studio by selecting menu options that start with New on the File menu.
Navigating the Design Surface
Once inside the design surface, the designer continues to support keyboard accessibility. For example, you can move between shapes or shape parts by using the Up and Down arrow keys. When you select a shape, the designer highlights it on both the design surface and, when available, in the Orchestration View window.
At the same time, the Properties window immediately displays details about the selected shape. This behavior helps you understand context without switching tools.
Using Shortcut Keys
To further improve accessibility, the Orchestration Designer provides a wide range of shortcut keys. These shortcuts vary depending on the area of the design surface you are working in, allowing you to work faster and more efficiently.
In addition, you can still rely on many standard Visual Studio shortcuts. For instance, these shortcuts remain available when you use Microsoft IntelliSense inside the BizTalk Expression Editor.
Shortcut Keys General to the Design Surface
| Key | Effect |
| TAB | Scroll the page down so that later parts of the orchestration are shown. Selection and focus do not change. |
| SHIFT + TAB | Same as TAB, but in the opposite direction. |
| PAGE DOWN | Performs the default action for the selection, typically shifting focus to the Properties grid. |
| PAGE UP | Same as the PAGE DOWN key, but in the opposite direction. Selection and focus do not change. |
| SHIFT + PAGE DOWN | Horizontally scrolls the entire design surface to the left by set increments. Selection and focus do not change. |
| SHIFT + PAGE UP | Same as SHIFT + PAGE DOWN except that the design surface scrolls to the right. Selection and focus do not change. |
| ENTER | Toggles between the expansion and the collapse of the Smart Tag of a selected shape. UP and DOWN ARROW can then be used to move through the items of a Smart Tag. When expanded, the Enter or Space keys execute the related action of a Smart Tag item (as well as collapsing the Smart Tag). |
| SPACE | Selects the shape that currently has the focus. There is no effect if the focus is on a shape connector. |
| CTRL + SHIFT + F1 | Toggles between expansion and collapse of the Smart Tag of a selected shape. UP and DOWN ARROW can then be used to move through the items of a Smart Tag. When expanded, the Enter or Space keys execute the related action of a Smart Tag item (as well as collapsing the Smart Tag). |
| DELETE | Deletes the current selection. |
Shortcut Keys Specific to the Process Area
| Key | Effect |
| DOWN ARROW | Moves the selection to the next connecting line or shape below. If the shape is connected to several branches below (as in the case of a Decide shape), the selection moves to the first shape in the leftmost branch. If selection is on the End shape for the orchestration, pressing this key has no effect because there are no more shapes below it. If selection is on the Return shape within a branch of a complex shape, the next shape is the endpoint of the complex shape. |
| UP ARROW | Moves the selection to the next connecting line or shape above. If the shape is connected to several branches above, the selection moves to the last shape on the leftmost branch (even if the last shape of the branch is a Return shape). Pressing this key has no effect when the Start shape is selected. |
| LEFT ARROW | If the selection is on a Send or Receive shape and the shape is connected to a port: If the shape has a port connector leading to a port in the Left Port Surface, focus and selection shift to the port connector of the shape. If the shape has a port connector leading to a port in the Right Port Surface, pressing this key has no effect. If the shape has no port connector, navigation is the same as with any other shape. For other shapes (or Send or Receive shapes not connected to a port): If the selection is in a branch, and a branch exists with shapes on it to the left of the current branch, the selection moves to the nearest shape on the branch to the left. The key has no effect anywhere else in the orchestration. |
| RIGHT ARROW | Same as the LEFT ARROW key, but in the opposite direction. |
| HOME | The selection changes to the connector that leads from the Start shape of the orchestration. |
| END | The selection changes to the connector, leading to the orchestration’s End shape. |
| NUM LOCK + – | Collapses the selected complex shape. |
| NUM LOCK + + | Expands the selected complex shape. |
| NUM LOCK + * | Expands the selected complex shape, plus any child complex shapes it may have. |
Shortcut Keys Specific to the Port Surfaces
| Key | Effect |
| DOWN ARROW | If a Role Link has the focus, it shifts to the first port inside. If no ports are inside the Role Link, the focus shifts to the next port or Role Link below it. If a port has the focus, it shifts to the next port or operation below it. If an operation has the focus, it shifts to its first operation part. For the <New Operation> template, the focus shifts to the next port. If an operation part has the focus, it shifts to the next operation part, operation, or port below it. There is no effect if no more objects exist below the current one. |
| UP ARROW | Same as the DOWN key, but in the opposite direction. There is no effect if no more objects exist above the current one. |
| RIGHT ARROW | Left Port Surface: If an operation part has the focus, it goes to the first port connector leading out of it. If there are no connections on the current operation part, pressing this key has no effect. If an operation has the focus, the focus goes to the first port connector of the operation’s first part that has a connection. If there are no connections in the operation, pressing this key has no effect. If a port connector gets the focus, whatever was selected in the Port Surface receives inactive selection. Right Port Surface: No effect. |
| LEFT ARROW | Same as the RIGHT ARROW key, except in the opposite directions (that is, no effect for the left Port Surface, and the focus can go onto a port connector for the right Port Surface). |
| HOME | Focus and selection shift to the first shape in the channel. |
| END | Focus and selection shift to the last shape in the channel. |
Shortcut Keys Specific to Port Connectors
| Key | Effect |
| RIGHT ARROW | Port connectors leading to the Left Port Surface: Focus and selection shift to the connecting Send or Receive shape. The port connector is deselected. Port connectors leading to the Right Port Surface: Focus and selection shift to the connecting operation part. In this case, whatever has a selection in the Process Area now receives an inactive selection. |
| LEFT ARROW | Same as the RIGHT ARROW key, except directions are reversed. |
| DOWN ARROW | Focus and selection shift to the port connector on the next operation part. If the last connector on the last port has focus, pressing this key has no effect. |
| UP ARROW | Same as the DOWN ARROW key, except in the opposite direction. If the first connector has focus, pressing this key has no effect. |
| HOME | Focus shifts to the shape connector leading out of the Start shape. |
| END | The focus shifts to the shape connector leading into the End shape. |
| DELETE | The port connector is deleted. This clears the Port Operation property on the Send or Receive shape. Focus shifts to the affected Send or Receive shape. |
I hope you enjoy this developer tip and stay tuned for the following BizTalk Server Best practices, Tips, and Tricks.
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