The Object Browser provides a hierarchical view on the design data based on graph, object and property aggregation structures. It is particularly useful when there are deep structures of objects embedded as properties in other objects.

To use the Object Browser, either activate the ‘Type Browser’ page in the Main Launcher, or alternatively open a new instance of it in its own window by selecting Browsers | Object Browser. Figure 3-28 shows an Object Browser window.

The Elements list in the middle of the Object Browser shows all graphs and objects and their properties that contain other objects or graphs. The Contents list on the right then shows the selected element’s properties with their values.

Pop-up menus are available for all element types in the Element list. For graphs the menu is similar to that in the Graph Browser (see Figure 3-24 and the description of the menu there). The pop-up menu for objects has two operations: Properties... and Info that bring up the property dialog and Info Tool for the selected object. For collection properties the menu offers four operations. Two of those, Properties... and Info, actually both call first the Info Tool for the selected element, from which you can then proceed by viewing or editing its properties. The Add... operation creates and adds a new object to the respective collection property, whereas Add existing... allows you to add an existing object.

On the Content list, pop-up menus are available only for non-property values (Figure 3-29). Use Properties... and Info to access the property dialog or Info Tool for the selected non-property. From this menu it is also possible to add new (Add...) or existing objects (Add existing...) as values or remove a value (Remove). Use Copy to copy the selected object to the clipboard.