On Jun 8, 2006, at 10:14 PM, Timothy Bates wrote:
You lost me with the "braindead block editing zero-column selection". How shouldit work?
The model here should be sub-etha-edit
Here you option drag across a group of lines and they are all highlighted showing they are in group edit mode, then, where ever you insert the selection point or make a selection, that region is group edited (vertically through the lines).
When I select something then click (not hold, but click) somewhere else, I expect the selection to go away and the cursor to move to where I clicked. This is the behavior of pretty much every application on pretty much every OS. To change the behavior in a single app would screw productivity in my opinion.
The benefits are massive: no need for pixel-perfect (pixel- perfect!) dragging of a selection across numerous lines (often several vertical cm). Just a single crude drag-as-you-like option select. Followed by a normal "click here to edit" selection.
Pixel-perfect? Unless I'm missing something, it seems to require merely character-perfect mousing, which is 1) not that difficult, and 2) something you have to do all the time anyway. There are ways to make these selections even easier (using the keyboard has been mentioned). I also find that (using the mouse) a lot of times it's easier to do a regular style selection, let go of the mouse, then tap the option key to toggle column-mode on.
"I like the way it is" I guess… would be the… main bullet point of this… presentation.
Rob