Community

All the programs I use allow for a Right-click and Select All option except TextPad. Heck, even the window I am currently typing in allows for it

I wish I had a dollar for every time I tried to right click to get to the Select All option in TextPad. I would be rich.

Could you PLEASE, pretty please with sugar on top, add this option.

I know it seems trivial but when someone is so used to using it it is painfully obvious when it is not there.

You want solutions, we got solutions:

(1) Macros -> Record
(2) Ctrl+A, Release
(3) Macros -> Stop Recording
(4) Save the macro using the Display name "SelectAll."
(5) Macros -> SelectAll

Viola!

Such is the power of TextPad.

Solution from HerNameWasTextPad results in a two-click solution.

Doing nothing, but using Edit/Select All is also a two click solution, the same number of mouse clicks with Right Click/Select All.

Precisely, Bob.

And considering that Ctrl+A--as well as a host of other available and convenient custom key mappings--can be quickly accessed, even in Full Screen mode, it's no wonder that Helios didn't bother to clutter the context menu with Select All. On the contrary, TextPad's context menu has a great selection of useful commands that other editors likely do not have.

I appreciate the responses...

It is not a matter of how many clicks, it is a matter of making the program a little more consistant with other applications. I am used to using Select All in the context window of all my other applications.

Adding one line item to the context menu is hardly "cluttering it up".

I can't beleive there is this much opposition to such a simple request.

I didn't sense any opposition, just some alternatives to do the same thing in a simpe way. And a concern for priorities.

There is a lot of hope for new features that have no work arounds, and many would rather see the limited resources spent on necessities vs. niceties.

Keep up with the suggestions

Well, the responses are not meant as opposition; they are meant mainly to explain a little why TextPad might be the way it is and to present ideas about how a user can work best with it.

If it would be OK to put a simple command on a menu, then it would be OK to put ANOTHER simple command on a menu, and ANOTHER, and then you'd have an interface that would be quite the opposite of TextPad's famously simple but powerful one.

We users need to discover the best ways in which to work with TextPad, so as to maximize its famous beauty.

TextPad also has some "quietly implemented" features. Keep reading the forum to discover them!

On the concept of the "workaround":

When something that normally works to get a job done stops working, then you've got to find a "workaround" in order to get the job done.

When there is nothing that has stopped working to get a job done, then you've simply got to figure out "a way in which to get the job done."

Note that "a way in which to get a job done" and a "workaround" are two different things.

Well, I do NOT have a solution for adding anything to the context (right-click) menu!!

BUT, I do have a way to add a KEYBOARD SHORTCUT KEY to that function.

1- Click on Configure | Preferences.
2- Click on KEYBOARD.
3- In Categories listbox, Click on (highlight) SELECTION.
4- In Commands listbox, Click on SELECTALL.
5- Click IN "Press new shortcut key" box.
6- Press the Shortcut Key you want to use. In this case I selected CTRL-A
7- Textpad responds with "Currently assigned to: "EditRedo"
8- Click on "ASSIGN" Button.
9- Click "OK"

Although you this cannot be done with TWO MOUSECLICKS, you can Select ALL text by pressing TWO KEYS!

I'm going to second the motion to add - or have the option to add (a customizable context menu would be awesome) - not just Select All, but Undo (and maybe Redo).

Due to their content and purpose, the editing of a number of my files mainly consists of a lot of cutting and pasting between files, and moving things around within them, with only a few keystrokes now and again.

So I've had to reply on the above mentioned actions a number of times, and rather than simply using the context menu like I do most other commands (and do in most *every* other program out there; I'll get to the clutter thing later), I have to search them out in the menus at the top of the program.

Sure, keyboard shortcuts are fine, but besides how rarely I use the keyboard when editing some files, I don't use them enough for them to quickly come to mind. (I'm a fast typist and can get around on the screen quickly using the spacebar, backspace and the arrow keys.)

Now, the clutter thing. Well, in my case, I already find the TextPad context menu, not really cluttered, but too long. I rarely, if ever, use Properties, Transpose, Align, Reformat, Fill Block and Block Select Mode. And if I ever do, I could simply use the menus at the top.

If I could take those items out of the context menu and add Select All, Undo and Redo, my context menu would be quite a bit shorter and quicker to use. Being able to customize the context, as I said at the beginning of this post, would be awesome; but I'd simply settle for the addition of Select All, Undo and maybe Redo to the current context menu as is.

Anyhoo, them's my thoughts! And just so you know, despite my nitpicking here, I do think TextPad is an awesome program.