A paradigm shift in text selection

ishmael.textualize.io

5 pointswillm3 comments

One of my favorite features of the Jetbrains IDEs is Ctrl+W for expanding the selection from current variable/token to statement to block.

There is one interaction with a text editor where even the pros will default to mouse or trackpad: selecting text.

Not when you use vim: v, V, ctrl-v all allow you to select text using only the keyboard. I stopped reading at this point, because the author hasn't looked at existing alternatives.

All of those require the user to then move the cursor after starting the selection (by character, word or line). The proposal is to use context to grow the selection by repeating the same shortcut, first the word, then the sentence, then the paragraph. Their audience are creative writers, not code writers so they (the audience) are probably not even aware of vim.

My only gripe with their choice of using the Shift key is that then you can't use Shift + the original shortcut to shrink the selection.

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