This section describes the concept of Aspose.Editor commands, how applications can use standard commands and create custom commands.

Command explained

Aspose.Editor control provides a solid way to do common tasks using preset commands. Command is a function which performs specific task on the editor control and a set of properties around this function like name and description. EditorControl.Commands collection provides a way to enumerate all available commands or find command by name.

The main purpose for a command is to uniquely represent a function which can be associated with an interface graphical element like tool bar button or menu item. In this way command can be bind to several interface elements and at the same time represent single point to access properties like text, image, and enabled state.

Standard and custom commands

There is a set of commands which are already implemented and available to application right away. These are standard commands and they cover such tasks as open/save/close document files via dialogs, change document formatting, printing and preview and others. Most standard commands appear on the standard menu bar and tool bar. Custom commands are dynamically added by application and extend existing set of standard commands with custom actions.

 

The table below presents all the standard commands currently available in the control:

Command Name	Description
New	Opens new blank document.
Open	Opens document from a file.
Save	Saves currently opened document into a file.
Save As	Saves currently opened document into a file with specified name and location.
Close	Closes currently opened document.
Print	Prints current document.
Print Preview	Shows print preview dialog.
Thumbnails	Generates thumbnails images of the current document.
Page Setup	Sets up current section page properties.
Cut	Cuts current selection.
Copy	Copies current selection into the clipboard.
Paste	Replaces current selection with the clipboard contents.
Undo	Undo last edit operation.
Redo	Redo last edit operation.
Find and Replace	Opens find and replace dialog.
Select All	Selects the whole document.
Page Width	Scales the view to see the width of the page.
Show All	Shows/hides all the formatting marks.
Text Width	Scales the view to see the width of the text.
20% Zoom	Scales the view to 20%.
50% Zoom	Scales the view to 50%.
100% Zoom	Scales the view to 100%.
200% Zoom	Scales the view to 200%.
500% Zoom	Scales the view to 500%.
Whole Page	Scales the view to see the whole page.
Break	Shows dialog to insert break.
Line Break	Inserts a line break.
Column Break	Inserts a column break.
Page Break	Inserts a page break.
Section Break	Inserts a section break.
Bold	Toggles bold style for the current selection or paragraph.
Italic	Toggles italic style for the current selection or paragraph.
Align Right	Aligns current paragraph right.
Align Left	Aligns current paragraph left.
Align Center	Centers current paragraph.
Justify	Justifies current paragraph.
Font	Opens font format dialog.
Paragraph	Opens paragraph format dialog.
Columns	Sets up columns of the current section.
Style	Opens style list dialog.
Clear	Clears formatting of the current selection.
About	Opens about dialog.

 

Sample code

Commands can be used in the following ways:

• Application can get command instance using EditorControl.Commands collection,
• Method Invoke can be used on command instance to directly execute command function,
• Properties Name, Text, Description, Image, Shortcut store command specific information,
• Method GetMenuItem and GetToolBarButton return interface elements which can be used in menus and tool bars. These elements are returned configured to represent command with Text, ToolTipText, Icon and Tag. When used in standard controls they will invoke command when clicked.
• Custom command can be created using one of Commands.Add methods,
• Existing command can be modified by changing InvokeHandler and EnabledHandler delegates.

 

Note. You can look through the demo projects to see how commands work in every detail.

 

In order to get command instance application need to use Commands collection. Command can be executed directly by calling Invoke or can be bind to menu item or tool bar. For this purpose Command implements two methods GetMenuItem and GetToolBarButton which return corresponding interface elements.

 

[C#]

 

// Get instance of "New" command.

Command cmdNew = editorControl.Commands["New"];

 

// Append command button to the first standard tool bar

StandardToolBar toolBar = editorControl.Bars.Tools[0] as StandardToolBar;

ToolBarButton toolBarButton = cmdNew.GetToolBarButton();

toolBar.Buttons.Add(toolBarButton);

 

// Ask user if command shall be executed right away and execute it if required

if ( MessageBox.Show("You are about to execute command \"" + cmdNew.Name +

    "\".\n\rDo you want to continue?",

        Application.ProductName, MessageBoxButtons.YesNo) == DialogResult.Yes )

{

    cmdNew.Invoke();

}