SlickEdit User Guide

TEXT EDITING
When viewing a list of clipboards, block selection types are indicated with the text “BLOCK” (see Viewing
and Inserting Clipboards for more information).
Selection Styles
Selections styles determine key behaviors for selections, like whether to extend the selection as the cursor
moves or to deselect after a copy or paste operation. Selection features in SlickEdit® depend on the
current selection style, which is set to match your emulation mode by default. However, note that the key
bindings described in this section are based on the default emulation mode, CUA. If you are using a
different emulation, see the emulation charts (located in the docs subdirectory of your installation directory)
for a listing of selection keys.
To change the selection style, use the Selections option screen (Tools > Options > Editing > Selections).
See Selection Options for more information.
Selection Indicator
SlickEdit® provides a selection indicator, located in the status area of the editor, to indicate the type of
selection and the number of characters or lines in a selection. This is useful to quickly determine the
selection type you have made, and to measure the length of a word or string, or the number of lines in a
function.
The selection indicator displays the following information based on your current selection:
• When nothing is selected, the indicator is dimmed and displays the text “No Selection”.
• When the current selection is a character selection:
o If the character selection is contained on one line, the indicator displays the number of
columns selected. For example, if three characters are selected, the indicator displays “3
Cols”.
NOTE Because columns are “virtual”, the number of columns displayed by the indicator is not
necessarily the actual number of characters or bytes in the selection, if the selection includes tab
characters, Unicode characters, or extends beyond the end of the line.
o If the character selection spans more than one line, the indicator shows the number of lines,
with a plus sign (+) to indicate if there are “extra” characters selected, or a minus sign (-) to
indicate if there are fewer characters selected, depending on the start and end columns of the
selection. For example, if the selection spans one entire line and part of the subsequent line,
the indicator displays “1 Line+”.
• When the current selection is a line selection, the indicator displays the number of lines. For
example, if two lines are selected, the indicator displays “2 Lines”.
• When the current selection is a block selection, the indicator displays the size of the block in the
format Lines x Columns. For example, if the selected block is two lines long and three columns
wide, the indicator displays “2x3 Block”.
TIP The selection indicator can be used to count the number of characters in any text block. This can
be useful for database work or any type of task that involves checking the number of characters.
Simply paste the text into SlickEdit and select it with one of the character selection methods, then
look at the selection indicator to see the number of characters.
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