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Column Mode

2007-10-12
2012-11-13
  • Nobody/Anonymous

    I've just recently tried out Notepad++ as a replacement for Crimson Editor, and I must say it is an excellent editor with pretty much all the features I am looking for.  However, I find myself going back to Crimson Editor for column mode editing, the Notepad++ column mode just doesn't seem to work very well compared to Crimson.   The reason I like Crimson so much is that once you enter "column-mode" there is no worry about whitespace, so you can select blocks of code that may or may not have multiple line-breaks between them, and you can also insert a column of text anywhere in blank lines, regardless of if there are any whitespace characters. 

    In short, I think a re-look at the column mode of Notepad++ would be an excellent improvement.  Anyone else agree?

     
    • Nobody/Anonymous

      Thank you for the reply!
      I tried your suggestion and it works with ALT+Left click, ALT+Right click does'nt select anything.
      About the problem of virtual spaces, the ALT+C method without any selection will insert the typed text at the starting column of all subsequent lines, even in lines shorter than the starting line.

       
    • steakhacher

      steakhacher - 2007-10-13

      Yes I agree a lot with you.
      The problem is that the based component used by notepad++ (scintilla) does not support virtual space and a good insertion column mode, nevertheless Don has add some column mode improvement with alt+c since version 4.x... and you could make rectangular selection by maintaining alt key down.

       
    • Salocin Delbab

      Salocin Delbab - 2007-10-14

      coucou steakhacher,

      I had in the french forum an interresting chat with Don on the virtual spaces(http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1816705&forum_id=731514). Indeed as you mention this is a limitation of scintilla, but the issue here is also that Don is unfortunatly not convinced of the interrest... (by the way looking again in the thread I see that you joined it also ;o)

      Let's say that for him there are too many side effects and that the requirements are as such not clear enough to offer us this functionality in place of scintilla.
      Maybe the idea would be to try to make the requirements clear from the previous thread... and to propose them as such to Don.

      w.k.r

      Nico

       
    • Nobody/Anonymous

      Notepad++ is an excellent editor!
      At work I use ULtraEdit and the Column Mode is very useful to me, not only to keep the code more readable!
      I hope to see a similar functionality in Notepad++.
      Using the alt key down method, the version 4.4 allows to delete a rectangular block or fill it with a single character: what's about the possibility to insert the typed text at the same column of a set of consecutive lines, eventually adding spaces if the lines are short?

       
    • Salocin Delbab

      Salocin Delbab - 2007-10-15

      to add a text on consecutive lines, youselect a block of 0 wide with the ALT+Right click and use the Alt+C to enter th text you want.
      the only issue id what you mention at the end of your comment : "eventually adding spaces if the lines are short" => this is the problem of virtual spaces... discussed above.

       
  • Alex Nguyen

    Alex Nguyen - 2010-08-25

    /agree.

    Column select is definitely nice; but, column edit would be really nifty!

     
  • cchris

    cchris - 2010-08-26

    Can you search for "virtual space" on the forums? I have posted a while ago a macro that enables virtual space in N++ - Scintilla has taken some time to add support for it, and N++ doesn't fully activate it.

    CChris

     
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