Block or Column select has to do with selecting text for copy/paste/cut actions. You’re probably already aware of [SHIFT]+[Arrow] to select left or right, or up or down. You’ve even in fact used these keys in combination with each other to get just he right selection. Throw the [ALT] key into the mix and check out what happens.
Visual Studio Tip / Trick #002 English Transcription:
Hello and thank you for watching VS tricks.com Trick No.2. Today’s trick is a video repost of Sara Ford’s original published tip # 2 back in July of 2007. The tip is block select or column select. So typically if you want to select something in Visual Studio you can double click it with a mouse. You can double click and then drag and drop, or many of you are used to using your key board. So [CTRL]+[SHIFT] left/right will select a word and than naturally you have [SHIFT]+[UP Arrow] and [DOWN Arrow] to do a line select.
So now if we introduce the [ALT] key watch what happens? [SHIFT]+[ALT]+[LEFT Arrow] doesn’t look like anything big is happening there, but now as I go [UP Arrow] and [DOWN Arrow] I can do a block select so the key stroke combination is [SHIFT]+[ALT] and if you just do [SHIFT]+[ALT]+[Down Arrow] that starts doing a line select until you go [Left Arrow] or [RIGHT Arrow] and that gives you a block select. One thing I found you can also do an [ALT]+ Drag and Drop with your mouse. So you can highlight a block of text by just holding down [ALT] key first and than starting a drag and drop. Now what’s interesting is after you have this selected you can to do a cut [CTRL]+[X] and than based on where your cursor is you can do a [CTRL]+[C] Paste which will do a block paste as well so if we get back to [CTRL]+[Z] all the way back to beginning. I can actually cut this then paste it right back in the same position or for some reason you need to paste in different position of the line that works as well.
Definately helpful, especially for IM conversations. Don't know how many times I've had to unindent as much as possible so as much code/text as possible would fit in the Live Messenger window. Will definately be memorizing this one!
I use the VS block select on occasion but it's still pretty limited. I hope that future versions of the IDE will mimic the block functionality of Ultraedit. I haven't found any other editor/IDE that compares and it's the sole reason I keep going back to UE.
![Trick: #001 Incremental Search [CTRL]+[I]](http://scottcate.com/files/media/image/LeftArrow.png)
5 comment(s)
Definately helpful, especially for IM conversations. Don't know how many times I've had to unindent as much as possible so as much code/text as possible would fit in the Live Messenger window. Will definately be memorizing this one!
I use the VS block select on occasion but it's still pretty limited. I hope that future versions of the IDE will mimic the block functionality of Ultraedit. I haven't found any other editor/IDE that compares and it's the sole reason I keep going back to UE.
Sadly not as powerful as jEdit's block editing - for instance, when a block is selected, typing occurs only in 1 line and not the whole block.