Block selection button

[AmyB]

Flash Builder, which is also based on eclipse, has a handy button that you can click that allows you to block select text and make the same edit on each line. For example, if I have

private var foo:String;
private var bar:int;

I can block-select private and change that to public.

How is this useful in OxygenXML? Sometimes I have to bring in HTML text that originated some unknown place, came to me in Excel, then had to go through Word, Dreamweaver, etc. to be massaged into a useful format. But even in that useful format, it might have "indents" created by lots and lots of  .

If I could just drag a selection around a "column" of   and change it to whatever I neeed to, this would make for a smoother process in this use case. I'm sure that there are other use cases where this would be helful.

The fact that Adobe has already added this feature to Eclipse means that it's obviously technically possible.

Regards;

Amy

[Costin]

Hello,

Unfortunately, we do not curently have a button similar to the "Toggle Block Selection Mode" in Adobe Flash Builder.
However, you can pretty much obtain the same results by using the "Find/Replace" dialog in oXygen.

Let's start considering your own example.
You have the following lines of code:

Code: Select all

private var foo:String;

private var bar:int;

and want, let's say, the "private" access level modifier to become "public".

In order to do that either in Eclipse or in the standalone version of oXygen you should select both lines (or all lines - in case you have more of them) and activate the Find/Replace dialog (Ctrl+F/CMD+F). Make sure to check the "Selected lines", under the "Scope" section. In the find field, delete all the content and manually type the text you want to change (or you can delete all text but the first word only - as in your example you want to change "private")
All you need to do further is to type the new text that will replace the old one (let's say "public") in the "Replace with:" field and hit the "Replace All" button. You will then end up with results similar to the Block Selection Mode you specified.

More specifically, focused on your example, you will get something like:

Code: Select all

public var foo:String;

public var bar:int;

I've logged your feedback in our issue tracking system as an improvement to be reviewed for a possible implementation in a future version of oXygen.

Feel free to let us know in case you need further assistance or information.

Regards,
Costin

[AmyB]

Thanks for the reply. For some reason I didn't get it.

Actually, I did use find and replace for getting rid of all the extra   characters I decribed...I just didn't find it as nice or efficient as the block select would ghave been, for exactly the reason I described--there were varying numbers of them in different places.