Select Stream

The Select Stream command is used to set Boxer's default selection mode to Stream. In this mode text is selected by lines, as opposed to rectangular blocks as can be achieved with Select Columnar. Stream selection is the conventional type of text selection found in most text editors and word processors.

The default selection mode determines what selection style is used when text selection is initiated either from the keyboard or with the left mouse button. If the default selection mode is Columnar, a temporary override to Stream can be achieved by holding down the Shift key before selecting with the mouse.

Text selection can be performed by keyboard by pressing and holding down the Shift key and moving the text cursor. Any cursor movement key can be used to move the cursor, e.g., PgUp, PgDn, Home, End, etc, so long as the Shift key remains depressed. As the text cursor is moved through the file, the selected area is extended.

Text selection can be accomplished with the mouse by pressing and holding the left mouse button and dragging the mouse to highlight the desired text. As the mouse pointer is moved through the file, the selected area is extended. An existing selection can be extended by depressing Shift or Ctrl before clicking or dragging the mouse.

Text can also be selected by clicking or dragging the mouse in the area to the left of column one. A single line can be selected by clicking the left mouse button at the far left edge of the line. Multiple lines can be selected by dragging the mouse in this area. An existing selection can be extended by depressing Shift before clicking in this area.

Text selection ends when the mouse button or the Shift key is released. The selected text remains highlighted and is ready to be operated upon by any of Boxer's Block commands, such as Cut, Copy, Append, Cut-Append, etc.

When text is selected, the Go to Line and Find commands provide options to extend the selection to the new cursor position that results from their operation. The Replace command provides an option to limit the replacement operation to the selected text.

When text is selected, issuing either the Save or Save Selection As command prompts the user to save the selected area to a disk file. Similarly, when text is selected and the Print command is issued, an option is available to print only the selected area.

Selected text can be deselected by clicking once with the left mouse button, pressing the Escape key, or pressing any of the cursor arrow keys. Pressing the Enter key, or any other alphanumeric key will cause selected text to be deleted.

If a stream selection is started in the virtual space beyond the end of a line, or within the virtual space of a preceding Tab character, the starting column of the selection will be moved to the nearest column to the left which contains a character.

If you start a selection and find that the mode was set to Columnar, simply issue this command to convert the existing selection to Stream. There's no need to cancel a selection; the selection mode can be toggled between Stream and Columnar at will.