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I've been using TextPad for years now, there really isn't anything out there that can compare to it. Unfortunately one of my favorite behaviors of TextPad got lost in v5, which has been keeping me from upgrading.

I'm not sure if anyone else noticed this, but when you double click text it used to select it, then if you hold shift down and click somewhere behind what you selected it will keep that selection and also select everything back to the cursor point.

Now with v5 if you have something selected and shift-click behind the selection, your original selection is lost and only from behind the selection to the cursor point is selected.

This was one of the selling points of TextPad for me, because most editors behave like v5 does (which is why I won't use them). Is there any way to get this behavior put back in v5 so I can upgrade?

Also in v4, user created tools were in the top level of the menu drop down, but now they're a sub-menu ... which is annoying when I want to run a bunch of tools quickly (and don't want to rely on keyboard shortcuts). I figured I would just enable the Tools toolbar to fix this problem, but Tool 1, 2, 3, 4 ... are far from intuitive. Is there any way to have the names of the user tools used in the Tools toolbar instead of just Tool 1, 2, 3? When I'm in a hurry I don't want to guess which tool number goes to which tool (or wait for the title on mouseover). If not, this would be another enhancement I would much appreciate.

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Come to think of it, there doesn't appear to be any way to add a right margin line (column marker) on either v4 or v5. They have this in gedit but hardly any other editors, and it's really useful. Usually I set the right margin marker to 80 just as a personal note that most terminals will be wrapping past that point. Is this available in either version and I'm just not seeing it?

Right click on the tool button from your new tool menu.
Select customize.
The Customize dialog will open.
You can then right click on the tool button again. You will see that the context has changed. You have choices to edit the button image, change the button image, display the name only, button only, name and button, etc.

I agree about the tools menu. I liked it better when the custom tools were not in a sub-menu.

I suggested a right margin line many years ago, even before this forum was set up. I was even thanked for my suggestion but I have yet to see it.

Dear Helios: When you change a feature, please include an option to allow the user to select the old way or new way.

Also, it is easy enough to move the custom tools menu out on its own. Right click on the menu bar and select customize.

Then, when the customize dialog comes up, left click on the "Tools" menu. You can then drag and drop the "External Tools" menu to the menu bar.

mtriggs wrote:Also, it is easy enough to move the custom tools menu out on its own. Right click on the menu bar and select customize.

Then, when the customize dialog comes up, left click on the "Tools" menu. You can then drag and drop the "External Tools" menu to the menu bar.

That seemed like a great idea. When tried it, "External Menus" located on the root menu bar opened to nothing. I dragged it back to the bottom of the tools menu and it is still empty. Do you know if there is a way to fix this or should I report a bug?

When I moved mine, it appeared to be nearly empty (generic entry of User Tool 1) but when I closed the customize dialog box and tried the menu button, it had the full expected content.

If that's not your case, you could reset the menu tool bar from the customize window. However, you will lose any other menu bar customization you've done. I couldn't get the reset to be active just for the "Tool" button on the Menu bar...

I **** external tools --- somewhere how can I get it back

thanks

David

David, try this.
1) Right-click on the menu bar and select Customize....
2) Select the Commands tab.
3) Select the Tools category.
4) Under Commands, find External Tools and drag it anywhere on the menu bar.

Thanks that did it!!!!!!!!!!