[TxMt] Re: Tapping option key for column selection - broken?

[Allan Odgaard]

On 25 Jun 2015, at 20:01, Matt Neuburg wrote:

> That's sort of the notion I've been hinting at too. I don't quite see 
> why there can't be a normal keyboard shortcut with the meaning(s) 
> involved here. m.

The functionality can be bound to another key, see 
https://github.com/textmate/textmate/commit/980b0b9796b828539f3a4956aa16fd104908437f#commitcomment-11805161

The reason I picked double-shift here is that we are in the selection 
realm. We select with shift and arrow keys, we use option to change the 
selection type (columnar), so it didn’t seem too far fetched to then 
use double-shift to deselect, as it’s somewhat symmetric with shift 
for selecting (and we’re more or less out of regular key shortcuts).

But I am sympathetic to the arguments raised in this thread.

Binding actions to single/double-tap of modifiers is however not code 
that is currently suitable for being parameterised (user configurable).

So for now I think double-shift should remain the default (hardcoded). 
The chance of clashing should be low, since double-shift in TextMate 
only has meaning when there are multiple carets/discontinous selections 
(or a freehanded caret). The most likely issue is that a global action 
will eclipse TextMate, in which case the user will have to manually bind 
the action to another key, if they need the feature.

But down the road, binding actions to modifiers could maybe be exposed 
to the user, or, if anyone has an unsolvable clash with the current 
hardcoding, I can add a setting to disable double-shift.