(Indent and Columnar Blocks)
(Text Registers and the Scratchpad)
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*[[Empty_Text_Register|Emptying a Text Register]]
 
*[[Empty_Text_Register|Emptying a Text Register]]
 
*[[Text_Register_Usage|Text Register Usage]]
 
*[[Text_Register_Usage|Text Register Usage]]
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*[[Text_Register_Notes|Text Register Notes]]
  
 
==Indent and Columnar Blocks==
 
==Indent and Columnar Blocks==

Revision as of 16:28, 3 February 2017


vEdit has an exceptionally wide range of block operations. Not only can you copy, move and delete blocks, you can also fill blocks with any desired character, indent blocks and insert an empty block between two columns. A “block” can be any amount of text from one character to an entire file.

vEdit supports three types of blocks:

Stream Block
Stream block is a block contiguous characters. You precisely determine the characters in the block. For example, it can be all characters from the middle of one line to the middle of another line.
Line Block
Line blocks consists of entire lines including the “newline” at the end of each text line. (For fixed-length records, it includes all characters in the record.)
Columnar Block
Columnar block is a rectangle of characters in your text, i.e. only those characters that are within the specified columns.

Stream blocks are the default and most commonly used type of block. You can think of line blocks as simply a shortcut way of selecting a stream block that consists of entire lines. Columnar blocks are quite different from stream blocks and vEdit has many special columnar block features.

A block is selected (marked) by setting beginning and ending “block markers”. vEdit highlights this area so that you can see what you have selected. Block editing functions such as BLOCK > Copy to register are not available until you have selected (highlighted) a block of text.

Selecting a block of text changes the operation of some editing functions (the cursor must also be within the block):

  • The key Delete will delete the entire block of text, this is configurable.
  • Edit > Formating > Indent and Edit > Formatting > Undent functions indent / un-indent all lines in the block, this is configurable.
  • Search > Search and Search > Replace by default are restricted to the characters in the block. This can be selected in the search and replace dialog boxes.




What exactly does the block include?

For “stream” blocks you must mark the end of the block with the cursor one character PAST the last character to be included in the block. In other words, the character just before the cursor is the last character included in the block.

If you end a stream block at the end of a line, the (invisible) “newline” character will not be included. If you end the block at the beginning of the next line, the preceding “newline” character will be included. When marking entire lines, you may find it easier to select “line” blocks.

This exclusion of the character at the cursor position may not make sense at first, but once you are used to it, it simplifies block operations.

When marking columnar blocks, it is much more intuitive and useful to include the character at the cursor position when marking the end of a columnar block.

Highlighting Text Blocks

Copy, Clipboard, Cut, Paste, and Move Blocks

Text Registers and the Scratchpad

Indent and Columnar Blocks