Feature request: select entire words

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gmichaud
Posts: 108
Last visit: Fri Mar 10, 2023 9:05 am

Feature request: select entire words

Post by gmichaud »

Here are some small videos showing the behavior I'd like to see in PS. Notepad & Visual Studio allow this, as does THIS VERY WEB PAGE. Not sure if it is IE or the object used in the web page that allows it. Even Lotus Notes allows it. Seems like everything allows it except Primal Script.

Plan B. The forum won't let me upload videos. I'll email them...
Thanks,
Gerry
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Jeremy.Couture
Posts: 1
Last visit: Tue Mar 03, 2015 8:02 am

Feature request: select entire words

Post by Jeremy.Couture »

This is actually a feature I find quite useful. I go into the habit of using this in Visual Studio and miss it in Primal Script. +1 for adding this handy feature.
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gmichaud
Posts: 108
Last visit: Fri Mar 10, 2023 9:05 am

Feature request: select entire words

Post by gmichaud »

I emailed 3 videos to support@sapien.com showing the select entire word support in notepad, visual studio 2010 and this forum web page. Let me know if you didn't get them.
Thanks,
Gerry
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Alexander Riedel
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Last visit: Thu Mar 28, 2024 9:29 am
Answers: 19
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Feature request: select entire words

Post by Alexander Riedel »

I got the videos, not sure why you felt compelled to send them. PrimalScript is not a web browser, notepad is not a coding tool and Visual Studio is, well, Visual Studio. 2010 is particular is very,VERY slow and I don't like to use that particlar version as a standard for anything.

Please explain the application to coding versus word processing. Programming languages usually don't adhere to a word-wise sentence structure.

From our end this would be a rather complicated change.
"see-this" is two words in VBScript, one word in PowerShell code but not in a string. Read-Only in a powershell comment is one word. Not so in code.

So changing the behavior of the mouse selection suddenly involves a syntax parser. Which complicates and slows things down.
Unless there is a really good reason and more than two people using this :-) I cannot really condone raising the priority on that.

I am not trying to negate your interest in this or your desire to have this, it's just that this has tons of potential side effects and I already hear the screams for the off switch. :-)
Alexander Riedel
SAPIEN Technologies, Inc.
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gmichaud
Posts: 108
Last visit: Fri Mar 10, 2023 9:05 am

Feature request: select entire words

Post by gmichaud »

I sent the videos (before I saw your response) because you said that no other apps support it when they do and I wasn't sure you understood the specific selection behavior I was talking about. And I just checked, VS 2008 DOES support this in my VB & C# projects. Double-click and drag selects multiple entire words in code & comments (even starting in code and continuing into comments) just like everything else I test. I can send you a video if you want :-) This behavior is everywhere in Windows. Has been for years. It's fast and efficient. No SHIFT key required. That's why I was so surprised when PS didn't support it. I've come to rely on it. ARGH!

My philosophy, if you will: Writing code is entering and editing text (with a LOT of copy & paste). Some text is interpreted as code, some text is interpreted as comment, some text is 'normal' readable text as with error messages to be displayed or logged. Whether I'm changing an error message or a function parameter, it's all text until I click GO.

I completely understand your points about the different languages' syntax differences, but for the sake of simply selecting the 'text' there's really no need to be syntactically correct for the language you're editing. I would NOT expect that. Follow the 'normal' text rules: words break at punctuation and whitespace (DON'T include the following whitespace like notepad does - I HATE THAT). If that means I drag a little farther to select the 'space' in 'white-space', I'm OK with that. That's how everything else works. Just please don't make me go letter by letter, aiming for the spot between the last 'l' and the period. There's not a lot of space in there for the mouse pointer. That's basically what I'm complaining about: having to 'aim' my mouse. How often is it that you have to select an entire word and only part of the next word? I guess I might have to do that at times, but most of the time it's complete words that I need to copy or delete or replace (paste over). Just like when using CTRL-SHIFT-LEFT or -RIGHT arrow.

OH, and I would completely inderstand if it were a user option that could be disabled. I'm actually surprised that I can't find a checkbox to uncheck in Visual Studio like I see in Word. This is the default Visual Studio selection behavior and apparently can't be disabled.

If you want I can get a couple other guys around here to chime in. Then we'll have THREE or FOUR requests for it :-)

How about at least making it a poll question on the BLOG page?

Thanks for taking the time to listen.
Thanks,
Gerry
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