[OS X TeX] Selection across the two panes of the source window

[Alain Schremmer]

On Nov 7, 2009, at 5:03 PM, David Watson wrote:

> On Nov 7, 2009, at 3:53 PM, Alain Schremmer wrote:
>
>> I am moving big chunks of source around and, rather than clicking,  
>> scrolling and shift-clicking so that I can't see the beginning of  
>> my selection anymore, I would like to split the window, click in  
>> the upper pane and shift-click in the lower pane to have  
>> everything in-between selected with the beginning of the selection  
>> highlighted in the upper pane and the end of the selection  
>> highlighted in the lower pane.
>>
>> I am still running TeXShop 2.18 which does not do this and I would  
>> like to know if later versions of TeXShop do.
>>
>> If not, do the people feel that this would be a worthwhile request  
>> to be added to the "List of feature requests on this list"?
>
> I think this is an interesting idea, and I wonder if it has ever  
> been done before.
>
> I could see this type of copy-paste as being triggered by selecting  
> a portion of text, and then scrolling up/down.
> The direction of the initial scroll would indicate whether you were  
> trying to select a block of text higher or lower, and place the  
> bottom/top at the extreme of the window, and as you scroll the  
> paper could "tear" to let you know that you were still scrolling up.
> You would have to have something mid-window to let you scroll back  
> the other direction in case of an overshoot, perhaps the "tear"?

I am not sure we are talking about the same: If I click somewhere on  
a page and then shift-click anywhere else, above or below, everything  
in-between is selected no matter what. Why should it be any different  
if the two clicks are so far apart that you can only see them in a  
split window. The way I see it, you scroll the upper pane until you  
have the begin of what you want to select. You click it. Then you  
scroll the bottom pane until you see the end of what you want to  
select. You shift-click it.

But I am sure it is more complicated than what I think!

> I don't know, this might not be an expected behavior for select- 
> scrolling, but I can attest to the fact that the current behaviour,  
> where you have to wait for the window to scroll up/down can be a  
> real pain.

Particularly when both the human user and the machine being used are  
old. But the worst is that when you see the bottom you don't see the  
top!

> That's why I switched to using emacs, although I do use TexShop for  
> some documents.

Last time I took a look at emacs, I almost got a heart attack. I sure  
got a headache, though. Fortunately, I don't do such massive moving  
that often that I can't stick with TeXShop.

Regards
--schremmer