Index  Menus  Panels  Troubleshooting  Glossary  Key glossary
Moving around  Searching  ASCII panel  Undo & Repeat  Advanced  Binaries

Selections and buffers

Selections 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

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