9. Cards
In the previous section we wrote that forms are mostly built from standard controls. There is, however, one special element that needs your attention. As you know by now, contexts are made up of roles. A role instance is represented on screen by a card. Manipulating cards is an essential part of the MyContexts user experience. With cards, you can
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remove a role;
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fill one role with another;
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remove the filler of a role;
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create a new instance of a role type and immediately fill it with another role instance;
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open another context (when the role represents a context), or open a role form (otherwise) showing its properties.
Cards usually are draggable - but that requires the use of a mouse. To enable card manipulation with just the keyboard, we have introduced a card clipboard in MyContexts. When a card is copied onto that clipboard, it’s title will show up in minitiature on the toolbar. As long as it is up there, it can be
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pasted as the filler of another card (that card must be selected);
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pasted into a role dropzone (the zone must be selected) to create a new role instance and fill it with the card on the clipboard;
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pasted into the bin on the toolbar to remove it;
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pasted into the remove filler tool on the toolbar to remove its filler;
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used to open another context- or roleform by pressing the key combination
shift-space.