Index Menus Panels Troubleshooting Glossary Key glossary
Moving around Searching ASCII panel Undo & Repeat Advanced Binaries
Selections and buffersSelections and buffers
The selection and buffer system in Edith is slightly different than in
most other editors, even those that are able to work with
rectangular or column shaped selections. If parts of text are
selected in an Edith text window, there is still also a cursor which can
move around freely within the selected text. If the cursor moves out of
the selection, it usually causes the text to be deselected. Much like
in an xterm
, the cursor doesn't move when you make a selection
with the mouse, unless that is necessary to keep the cursor inside the
viewable area.
The selection is fragmented, which means that the marked text is
not necessarily a continuous part of the text. Any number of fragments
can be marked simultaneously, and all text operations, like Search engine... (Browse menu, Ctrl F)
and Shift left (Text menu, Ctrl J), have been designed to work on selections of any shape.
As usual in graphical text editors, there are Cut (Edit menu, Alt X), Copy (Edit menu, Alt C) and Paste (Edit menu, Alt V)
functions. But as a consequence of the fragmentation of selections, the
cut buffer, that is the place where a copy-ed selection is
stored, is also divided into fragments. This hardly ever plays an
important role; with one exception: the Replace (Browse menu, Ctrl H) operation, which
exchanges one by one the fragments in the selection and the cut buffer.
The cut buffer can be inspected in the editor master
panel. An additional buffer visible in the master panel, the
trash buffer, contains old text and old contents
of buffers. Both can also be opened into a window from the
windows menu. A number of other buffers, not
directly available to the user, plays a role in the Undo (Edit menu, Alt U) system.
Important to know is perhaps that all text windows share one
buffer for the undo function, which explains why undo is usually
only available for the window you worked in most recently.
SELECTION WITH THE MOUSE
- Move the mouse over the text while holding down the left mouse
button to select a continuous text fragment. This will
generally not move the cursor.
- Double click the left mouse button to select a word.
- Move the mouse over the text while holding down the
Ctrl key to select a rectangular area of text.
- Switch to Additive selection (Mark menu, Caps Lock) to add new fragments to the
selection.
- Unless in additive selection, click the left mouse button
anywhere in the text window to clear the selection and move
the cursor.
- Hold Shift and click/drag to adjust the end points of a
selected fragment. If the selection was created with a double
click, it will be aligned to word boundaries.
- Click and hold the left mouse button inside a selected fragment
to drag and drop the selected text, either to another text
window or the buffer displays in the master panel.
- currently, no drag-and-drop protocols for communication with other
applications have been implemented.
- Click the middle mouse button to paste the selection to or
from another, or the same, window, including ones that do not
belong to Edith.
- The right mouse button pops up a menu, whose contents vary
depending on whether the menu bar is switched on or off.
SELECTION WITH THE KEYBOARD
Typing while there is a selection does not destroy or replace the
selected text. Normally, walking away from the selection using the
cursor keys will cause the selection to be cleared. This is not the
case when additive selection is switched on. All these functions
are found in the mark menu.
- Shift + cursor keys, Home, End, etc.
-
create a selection. When Additive selection (Mark menu, Caps Lock) is selected, multiple
fragments can be selected.
- Alt Shift A
-
set beginning of (single fragment) selection. If there was no
previous selection, the selected fragment will extend to the end
of the text. Set the end point by (1) moving over with the cursor
keys and End selection (Mark menu, Alt Shift B), or (2) moving to the end point with the slider,
and Shift click/drag.
- Alt Shift B
-
set end of single fragment selection. If there was no previous
selection, the selected fragment will start at the beginning of
the text.
- Alt Z
-
clear selection
- Ctrl ], Alt Q
-
select south-east quadrant.
- Ctrl [, Alt Shift Q
-
select north-east quadrant.
Index Menus Panels Troubleshooting Glossary Key glossary
Moving around Searching ASCII panel Undo & Repeat Advanced Binaries