[request] New feature about text selection

[Sam Sahara]

Hallo Kovid.

The scenario is: a huge html file to manage, 30000 lines long; I have to run a regex on a certain quote of the file, say from line 33 to line 12612. I have to click on line 33, then shift the cursor through the file up to line 12612, and only then release the mouse button, Alt-Shift-M to mark the region, run the regex.

But selecting such a big chunk of text lines is very difficult and prone to errors.

A useful feature to solve the problem would are two html editor commands:

right-click -> select -> begin

to mark the point from where start the selection;

right-click -> select -> end

to mark the point to where end the selection.

In the case above I should go to line 33, right-click -> select -> begin, then slowly and comfortably go up to line 12612, right-click -> select -> end, Alt-Shift-M, and finally run the regex.

A much more useful version of the same feature (but a bit more complex) would be the ability to select the start and the end of the region via a regex, a command like: "select from the line that match the regex "A" up to the line that match the regex "B"".

ss

[kovidgoyal]

Since you want to use a regexp to select a region to use another regexp on anyway just modify the search/replace regexp it to only match the region of interest. And note that you can press Ctrl+. to jump to any line number (although that will not help with marking).

[retiredbiker]

Why not just put the cursor at the start of the text you want, release mouse, go down to the end of the desired text, and shift-click? This is how I always select large sections.

[Sam Sahara]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Since you want to use a regexp to select a region to use another regexp on anyway just modify the search/replace regexp it to only match the region of interest.

It is not possible in every case. The use of one or more regexes to select a region (into which operate some changes with other regexes) is a common tecnique with vim or emacs.

ss