Block|Begin Selection

Select Begin Selection from the Block menu to tell EditPad Pro to remember the current position of the text cursor. Doing this does not have any visible effect. After using Block|Begin Selection, you can use Block|End Selection to select text starting at the position remembered by Block|Begin Selection. If you have more than one file open in EditPad Pro, Begin Selection remembers its position separately for each file. Selecting Begin Selection when working with one file does not wipe out the position remembered for any other file.

These commands are very useful when you want to make a very large selection, or if you want to perform a search to find the start and the end of the selection. You can do whatever you want between invoking Begin Selection and invoking End Selection, including selecting part of the text in any way. The position stored by Begin Selection is remembered until you use Begin Selection again.

The Begin Selection command works slightly differently when selections are persistent. Then it is possible that part of the file is already selected, without the text cursor being positioned at the end of the selection. In that case, Begin Selection moves the starting position of the selection to the current position of the text cursor, and nothing is remembered. If the new beginning is inside the old selection then the selection shrinks. If the new beginning is further away from the ending than the old beginning then the selection expands. If the new beginning is below the ending position when the old beginning was above the ending, or vice versa, then the selection pivots around the ending position. If you want to expand rather than pivot the selection, use Block|Expand Selection instead.

If there is no selection, Begin Selection remembers the position for use with End Selection, whether selections are persistent or not.

If you use the menu item or toolbar button to invoke this command then it is invoked on EditPad’s main editor, where you edit files. If you press the shortcut key on the keyboard, it is invoked on whichever editor is showing the text cursor (vertical blinking bar), whether that’s the main editor, the search box, or the replace box.

Block|Begin Selection

See Also