OT - minor windows question
 

you know how if you're selecting things with the mouse cursor windows will modify your selection on the fly? is there any way to turn that off? i find it almost never selects what i want.

Re: OT - minor windows question
 

Huh?

Holding the ctrl key will allow you to select/deselect individual items to add/remove them to your current selection. Holding shift will allow you to select a contiguous group of items, starting from the Last clicked on item. Holding ctrl + shift will allow you to add a contiguous set of items to a previously selected set of items, starting from the Last ctrl-clicked on item.

Re: OT - minor windows question
 

oh, sorry, should have been more specific. and it's wordpad specific, now that i'm thinking. open up wordpad, type a sentence and try to select it.

Re: OT - minor windows question
 

Ok. It seems to select the sentence just fine for me. Can you please be more specific?

Re: OT - minor windows question
 

I assume you're referring to Windows's habit of highlighting an entire word when you just want a portion, or selecting a word and the following space when you just want the word. It annoys me, too. I eventually get it to select what I want by jiggling the cursor back and forth—eventually, it gets the right idea.

Re: OT - minor windows question
 

i modify it's selection with the arrow keys or just use the arrow keys. but it's still annoying.

Re: OT - minor windows question
 

If you try highlighting from left to right, it will highlight the whole word/phrase/sentence.

Try highlighting from right to left instead.

Also, if you begin highlighting a portion, and you catch the space before the word/sentence/phrase, it will automatically highlight the whole word, so start highlighting at the first letter.

Did this make any sense?

Re: OT - minor windows question
 

yep. i take it you can't turn it off?

Re: OT - minor windows question
 

I don't believe you can, but then again, email microsoft and ask them.

Re: OT - minor windows question
 

Go to View / Options;
Select Options tag;
Uncheck the "Automatic word selection" box.

And I find it annoying too. If I want to select an entire word, I'll select the entire word damnit, I don't want my software to be designed with the assumption that I always want to select everything (especially annoying with URLs).

Re: OT - minor windows question
 

thanks.

Re: OT - minor windows question
 

They're right. I usually deal with it by highlighting from right to left like someone else already said. If you think that sucks, try picking out a single letter in the middle of a word, especially a small one (not that there isn't an easier way).

How do I say this...? I think it happens because the start of a line (or word) is very close pixelwise to the start of the first letter, and it's hard to position the mouse pointer exactly where you want it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

And no, you can't turn it off.

[ February 14, 2004, 14:42: Message edited by: Cipher7071 ]

Re: OT - minor windows question
 

Hmmm...that was clear as mud.

The main reason it happens is that at design time some dufus decided that nobody should want to select just some part of a word for editing. So it got coded to grab for the entire word, or in some mouse positions, two words, or phrase.