Edit ops — undo/redo, the command palette & clipboard

tutorial lesson Beginner ⏱ 5 min vgai 0.1.0

Prerequisites: Take the editor tour

What you'll learn

• Run any edit op from the command palette (⌘K)
• Delete an entity and undo/redo the change
• Know the full edit-op set and their shortcuts

What you'll build: Deleting an entity from the palette, then undoing and redoing it.

Walkthrough — Edit ops — undo/redo, the command palette & clipboard · generated by site/media/lessons/learn-editops.lesson.ts (4 steps)

Editing in vgai is safe to experiment with because every mutation is undoable — the store keeps a 50-deep undo stack. The fastest way to reach any action is the command palette (⌘K / Ctrl+K), which searches both editor actions and your entities.

Follow along in the live web editor

Open the scene these steps use — no install: ▶ Open the material-files scene (it contains the GoldSphere below). Every edit op here — delete, undo/redo, copy/cut/paste, duplicate, select-all — works fully in the browser. (The ops work on any entity, so any scene will do.)

Steps

1. Select an entity and open the palette. With GoldSphere selected, ⌘K opens the palette and “Delete Selected” is one keystroke away — each action shows its shortcut (here Del).

   

   ⌘K finds any edit op — and lists its shortcut.

2. Delete it. Running the action removes GoldSphere from both the hierarchy and the viewport.

   

   The entity is gone — hierarchy and scene update together.

3. Undo. Undo (⌘Z on macOS, Ctrl+Z on Windows/Linux) restores the entity — it reappears in the tree and in the scene. Not sure of the key? Just run Undo from the palette (⌘K / Ctrl+K) — same action, no shortcut to remember.

   

   Undo brings it back from the 50-deep stack.

4. Redo. Redo (⌘⇧Z on macOS, Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y on Windows/Linux — or run Redo from the palette) re-applies the delete. Undo/redo walk the same history in both directions.

The full edit-op set (⌘ on macOS = Ctrl on Windows/Linux)

action-registry.ts registers them all, each with a shortcut (shown macOS-style; ⌘ = Ctrl on Windows/Linux): Undo (⌘/Ctrl+Z), Redo (⌘/Ctrl+⇧Z, or Ctrl+Y), Copy (⌘/Ctrl+C), Cut (⌘/Ctrl+X), Paste (⌘/Ctrl+V), Duplicate (⌘/Ctrl+D), Delete Selected (Del), Select All (⌘/Ctrl+A), Deselect (Esc). Every one is also in the command palette (⌘K / Ctrl+K), so you never need to memorize a chord. They operate on the current selection; copy/cut/paste move entities through the editor clipboard. Undo/Redo dispatch through an editor-global undo timeline (authoring/undo-timeline.ts) that orders operations across whichever editing surface is active (scene, ingest session, or UI editor) — the keyboard shortcuts (editor-hotkeys.ts) and the palette both drive the same timeline.

Recap

New functionality

• Ran Delete / Undo / Redo from the command palette
• Saw an entity removed and restored in hierarchy + viewport

New concepts & skills

• ⌘K opens a fuzzy palette over actions and entities (each shows its shortcut)
• every mutation is undoable — a 50-deep stack walked by Undo/Redo
• the edit-op set: copy/cut/paste, duplicate, delete, select-all/deselect, all on the selection

Next lesson → Editor architecture

On Your Own!

Extend what you built:

• Select an entity, ⌘/Ctrl+C then ⌘/Ctrl+V — a duplicate appears
• Make several edits, then ⌘/Ctrl+Z repeatedly to walk back through history
• ⌘/Ctrl+A to select all, then move them together with the gizmo

See also

• Editor architecture · Take the editor tour