Moving and re-sizing submodels

The following rules govern the behaviour of the move tool, when applied to submodels.

• dragging in any blank area of a submodel moves the whole submodel and all its contents, if the submodel is selected;
• dragging the submodel boundary resizes the submodel by moving the boundary that is dragged; and
• dragging a corner of the submodel resizes the submodel in both the horizontal and vertical directions.

If a submodel is not selected (i.e. the boundary is not drawn blue) then dragging in a blank area within the submodel draws a rectangular marquee for selecting elements within the submodel. Only if the submodel is selected, is it possible to move it by dragging.

When moving or re-sizing a submodel, there must be sufficient area of blank canvas (with no obstructing elements) available.

Note that it is not possible to move an element across a submodel boundary, or vice versa. This is because such a move would change the actual semantics (mathematical properties) of the model, which "move" operations generally do not. It is necessary instead to cut the element (or group of elements) from one side of the boundary, and paste them in the other. This will cause any links between the element(s) and other parts of the model diagram to be broken, and they must be added again individually.

If a lot of elements are to be moved in or out of a submodel, it may be easier to delete the submodel boundary and redraw it around a different group of components. Any special properties of the submodel, e.g., dimensions, will have to be set again when it is re-created.

In: Contents >> Working with model diagrams >> Moving model diagram elements