[TxMt] Re: Cancelling a multiple selection?

[Kai Wood]

On 13.05.2015, at 15:40, Allan Odgaard <mailinglist at textmate.org> wrote:
> 
> On 13 May 2015, at 15:30, Tom Smyth wrote:
> 
>> Is there a key for this? I know you can go to the start of the line or up
>> depending on the type of selection but that requires a certain cognitive
>> overhead in my experience and it would be so much easier to have a single
>> consistent key that cancels it and returns to the original single
>> selection. Is there one that I don't know about?
> 
> There is no key for this, but a mouse click will do, or the up/down action (as you mention).
> 
> The problem is finding a good key, i.e. will you remember something like ⇧⌘⎋ or just do the up/down when you want to go back to a single caret?
> 
> Though with the existing convention of single-tapping option to toggle selection type, and with Apple’s introduction of double-tapping fn for dictation, perhaps double-tapping shift could work.
> 
> I wonder though if it should just “pop” the last selection, this would then also work as an undo for ⌃W (select next word) which is sometimes requested. But it might be a little tedious if you have many carets/selections.
> 
> Input?

Would it be possible to put every selection on the undo stack? A selection is some kind of an “editing transaction”. For me, it would feel natural to hit cmd-z to undo my last “thing”, be it a deletion of a word or in this case, an additional selection with ^w.

This would buy an additional feature, if I loose my last selection (e.g. by hitting accidentally a cursor key without holding shift) I can simply reselect it.

For canceling *all* cursors (a feature I would absolutely love), Tim’s suggestion of double tapping option sounds like a good choice.

Option already toggles column selection and multiple line selection. Those are “modes” of selection. For me, getting back to a single cursor is exactly this, a “mode of selection”. Feels natural to keep this in a single key.

Hmm, the more I think about it… Maybe instead of a double tap, a single third tap on option would be enough to cancel. If I’m in column selection, I never want to go back to multiple lines selection. And as soon as I move left/right, option doesn’t do anything, as I have multiple carets already.