Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:7954 comp.windows.misc:591 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!uwmcsd1!leah!itsgw!steinmetz!vdsvax!barnett From: barnett@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com (Bruce G. Barnett) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.windows.misc Subject: Re: Textedit wars (was vi vs emacs in a student environment) Message-ID: <4749@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com> Date: 5 Jul 88 10:08:30 GMT References: <399@cantuar.UUCP> <11418@steinmetz.ge.com> <6056@megaron.arizona.edu> <8196@brl-smoke.ARPA> <4736@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com> <5071@watcgl.waterloo.edu> Reply-To: barnett@steinmetz.ge.com (Bruce G. Barnett) Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY Lines: 54 In article <5071@watcgl.waterloo.edu> lrbartram@watcgl.waterloo.edu (lyn bartram) writes: | | ...etc. *Quad* clock? 4 quick clicks? Why 4? if there are any | other multiple clicks ( double, even single ) i can just imagine | the ease of making errors. Not really. A single click: A) changes the insertion point B) Selects one character. To select more than one character, you can use the middle mouse button to modify (extend) the selection. This is a pain when you want to cut/paste a word or line, because you have to precisely align the mouse before clicking. SunView/textedit solves this problem by multiple clicking. 2 clicks - word mode 3 clicks - line mode 4 clicks - entire buffer. This makes it very easy to cut and paste words or lines. To select a line: Move the mouse anywhere on the line and give the left mouse button three clicks. To select several lines: Select the first/last line with three clicks Move the mouse to the last/first line and click the middle mouse button once. The selection 'rounds up' to whole lines. The delay between selections are user-programmable. I find the multiple-clicking easy to use and consistant as a means of selection. The only time I have problems is when the system is bogged down, the programmable delay is too large, and I do too many mouse-ahead operations. And since I can immediately see the results of the selection, I don't make too many 'disastrous' errors. One subtle feature of the multiple clicks: With most mouse editors, it is difficult to quickly place the insertion point at the first/last character of a word/line. With multiple clicks, the insertion point is also 'rounded'. That is, if you want to insert before a word, you position the mouse somewhere in the first half of the word, and double click. If you want to insert at the beginning of a line, position the mouse somewhere in the first half of the line and triple click. Same for insertions at the end of a word/line. -- Bruce G. Barnett uunet!steinmetz!barnett