I've been using TextPad for many years -- it is an excellent text editor! But there has been something that's been driving me crazy for a long time now: it's almost impossible to quickly and accurately select sections of text within a single line using the mouse, particularly if the text being selected extends horizontally beyond the edge of the window. What happens is that the cursor tends to jump off the current line to the line above or below. If, for example, the line is very long and I'm scrolled far out to the right, and the cursor jumps down to a short line below, the window is instantly scrolled to the far left and I lose my place on the original line. So, I end up having to find my starting point again, and then make a selection using the shift-arrow-key method (which is slow, tedious, and means I have to take my hand off the mouse).
It wasn't always like this. Early versions of TextPad did not exhibit this jumpy behavior. I don't remember when it changed, but I recall a marked difference in the cursor "sensitivity" after a major upgrade several years ago. I had hoped that it would get corrected, but it never did.
I suspect that the problem has to do with the UI setting that counts how many pixels the cursor moves above or below the current line. It seems that if I move the cursor approx 45% above or below current line, TextPad "thinks" I want to select the next line (above or below). If this could be set to perhaps something like 75 - 80% beyond the current line, then I think the program will be much easier to use.
UI Problem: Difficulty selecting text with mouse
Moderators: AmigoJack, bbadmin, helios, Bob Hansen, MudGuard
UI Problem: Difficulty selecting text with mouse
Last edited by SpyGuy on Sat Jun 26, 2004 4:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
If you want to select whole lines:
move the mouse pointer to the left edge next to the first line you want to select.
Press left mouse button and keep it pressed
Move mouse up or down until all lines you want selected are selected
Release mouse button.
To select a SINGLE line: simply left-click into left margin
move the mouse pointer to the left edge next to the first line you want to select.
Press left mouse button and keep it pressed
Move mouse up or down until all lines you want selected are selected
Release mouse button.
To select a SINGLE line: simply left-click into left margin
Another idea:
select the first few characters.
Then scroll by using mouse on horizontal scrollbar till the end of what you want to select is visible.
Press shift key and hold it.
Click on the place where your selection should end.
This is very easy to do, especially if you have the current line marked.
select the first few characters.
Then scroll by using mouse on horizontal scrollbar till the end of what you want to select is visible.
Press shift key and hold it.
Click on the place where your selection should end.
This is very easy to do, especially if you have the current line marked.
Hi Mudguard, that's a good tip. But still not as fast or convenient as clicking and dragging a selection. I would prefer that TextPad be fixed to make it less sensitive to the vertical position of the mouse. As I said in my original post, TextPad was not like this in earlier releases, so it seems that something changed to make it more "jumpy."