Protégé Tree Navigation Using Arrow Keys

As you may have seen while opening up branches in Protégé, the hierarchy window gets filled up quickly and it makes it difficult to navigate the open branch and move from branch to branch. It turns out the arrow keys can help.

If you click on a class name you can use the up and down arrow keys to move down the hierarchy but only through open branches.

The right arrow has several functions. If you are focused on a class with children it will open up the branch. The next use of the right arrow will move the focus to the first child; otherwise it will move the focus down the hierarchy to sibling classes just as the down arrow does.

The left arrow can do two things. If the class has children and the branch is open, it will close the branch or it will allow you to directly navigate to the parent of a class that is in focus, even if it is not the first child in the list.

The arrow keys can do these tasks quickly, you just need to be sure that the focus is in the hierarchy window.

• Click on a concept in the Class Hierarchy
  

• Press Down Arrow once. The cursor will go to the next concept down without opening the tree.
  

• Press Right Arrow once. The tree for the current concept will open, if children exist.
  

• Press Right Arrow once. The cursor will go to the next concept down and open the tree, if children exist.
  

• Press Right Arrow four times. The cursor will behave the same as a down arrow as long as no children exist.
  

• Press Left Arrow once. The cursor will jump to the parent of the current concept.
  

• Press Left Arrow once. The cursor will close the tree for the current concept and jump to the parent of the current concept.
  

• Press Down Arrow twice. The cursor will go to the next concept down without opening any trees.
  

• Press Up Arrow three times. The cursor will go to the next concept up without closing any trees.