Navigation: home pagetechnical articles

key definitions

English language keyboard shortcuts.

Many operations can be performed rapidly using various combinations of keystrokes. This page describes the known keystroke combinations for the English language version of the RapidFile database software.
Content revision history:
Created on 18th September 2010.
Updated 2nd November 2012.

Within the database table layout

key combinationexplanation
Ctrl-A Insert a blank record
Ctrl-B ? Unknown
Ctrl-C Interrupts an operation in progress, such as a record-selection or record-ordering operation. DO NOT USE THIS KEY-COMBINATION because when RapidFile was created there was no proper 'break' handling in the operating system, and consequently using Ctrl-C will very likely corrupt your data.
Ctrl-D ? Unknown
Ctrl-E Edit the user-defined keyboard macros.
Ctrl-F Pop-up the 'file' menu.
Ctrl-G Go to a specific record, for example record number 437.
Ctrl-H Hide the bottom two 'function-key definition' lines. This seems pointless because there doesn't seem to be any way to use those lines for something else.
Ctrl-I Causes the calculated fields of the currently selected set of records to be recalculated. This is principally useful for 'report-type' fields as these are not recalculated automatically when other fields in a record change.
Ctrl-J ? Unknown
Ctrl-K Start and end the creation of a keyboard macro definition.
Ctrl-L Pop-up the 'layout' menu.
Ctrl-M Show the software version number.
Ctrl-N Fill a numeric field with sequential numbers, starting with 1. Only the selected records are affected.
Ctrl-O Order (sort) the selected records by the contents of the currently highlighted field.
Ctrl-P Popu-up the 'print' menu.
Ctrl-Q Quit (end / exit) the RapidFile program.
Ctrl-R Pop-up the 'records' menu.
Ctrl-S Search for some text within the current field of the selected records.
Ctrl-T Show the numeric totals for the selected records. The highest, lowest and average values are also shown.
Ctrl-U Update the default layout settings, using the existing layout as the template.
Ctrl-V When using a split layout, toggle between a horizontal split and a vertical split.
Ctrl-W Pop-up the 'write' menu.
Ctrl-X ? Unknown
Ctrl-Y ? Unknown
Ctrl-Z Use the spelling checker, if it is installed.
Ctrl-Enter Save the entire database.
Ctrl-Del Delete the current record.
Ctrl-Ins Insert a new, blank record prior to the current record.
Ctrl-@ Duplicate the record prior to the current record, create a new blank record if necessary.
Ctrl-< Reduce the width of the current field
Ctrl-> Increase the width of the current field
Ctrl-# Move the function key definitions from lines 24 and 25 to lines 1 and 2.
Ctrl-Break Interrupts an operation in progress, such as a record-selection or record-ordering operation. DO NOT USE THIS KEY-COMBINATION because when RapidFile was created there was no proper 'break' handling in the operating system, and consequently using Ctrl-Break will very likely corrupt your data.
Ctrl-1 Change the database view to a 'table' layout.
Ctrl-2 Change the database view to a 'form' layout.
Ctrl-3 Change the database view to a 'split' table/form layout.
Ctrl-4 Change the database view to a 'label' layout.
Ctrl-5 Change the database view to a 'quick report' layout.
Ctrl-6 Change the database view to a 'custom' layout.
F1 Show the help screens.
F2 Edit the present cell (i.e. the present field of the present record).
F3 Toggle between a table layout and a form layout. If the present layout is a split layout then the focus moves between the table and layout sections.
F4 Activate the memo writer for the present cell.
F5 Tag or untag the present record.
F6 When not editing a cell, the whole record is highlighted.
When editting a cell the entire cell contents are copied to RapidFile's own clipboard.
F7 Move the highlighted record to be below (after) the current record.
F8 Copy the contents of the current field of the highlighted record to the current field of the current record.
F9 ? Unknown
F10 Pop-up the most recently used menu.
Navigation: home pagetechnical articles
Disclaimer (the small print): The information within this page and within this web site is offered merely in the hope that somebody somewhere might find something of it that is useful in some matter. It is not guaranteed to be accurate or reliable in any way and you rely upon it entirely at your own risk.
Site locator:rapidfiledotcodotuk
W3C HTML validator    W3C CSS validator