Edit text selection bug?

I’ll be honest, the last time I used Edit seriously was on my A5000.

However recently I’ve discovered a strange thing in Zap where clipboard copying just ceases working and drag-save does nothing (but entering a path works fine). I suspect it might be some sort of interaction with the clipboard manager, but I’m not sure and haven’t had the inclination to start looking.

So, having written by blog post in Zap, I load the file into Edit to copy the text ready for pasting into the browser.

I put the caret at the start position, then I go down to the end position and click Adjust.

That’s how it’s supposed to work, isn’t it?

Because, here, I get a sort of random selection which is maybe a couple of lines prior to the end position and nothing to do with the start (or anything in between).

To make this work, I have to begin a selection at the top, and then scroll down and add to it with Adjust.

Is my memory wrong? Surely it wasn’t that fiddly way back when?

No, it’s always been that way.

What you may not have noticed was that, after scrolling down, the caret is still on-screen. Consequently, clicking on Adjust selects everything from the pointer position to where the caret now is, not where you originally placed it.

The correct method of selecting a large block of text in Edit is:

• Position the caret at the start of the block.
• Select a small amount of text (e.g. a few words) by clicking on Adjust.
• Scroll down to the desired end point and click Adjust again.

Wow. What a palaver. Something else Zap gets right.
Thanks for the confirmation that it was my naff memory.

Later: Ugh, it looks like StrongEd does what Edit does.
But being StrongEd, Choices → Display → Force caret inside view when scrolling unticked will make it do what Zap does. ;-)

A nice way to mark in StrongED is to use the esc key.
Click where you want to start the selection.
Hold down the Esc key
Scroll up or down with the navigation keys:-
arrows, PgUp/PgDn, Home, End
The selection follows the cursor selecting or unselecting accordingly.
Don’t know if Edit or Zap does this but it feel comfortably predictable in use.

There is a keyboard selection method in Zap.

I can’t tell you what it is as I don’t use it, but I’ve stumbled across it by accident a few times.

Okay, just tried a few things. It’s toggled on and off with ^Copy.
I probably ran into it as Shift-Ctrl-Copy is the keypress to make a text copy of whatever is in the current document. It’s the quickest way to translate BASIC code to plain text for copying into other documents (like my blog).
Anyway, Ctrl-Copy and then move the cursor, when the desired part is selected, Ctrl-Copy to end selection mode.

Oh! I’ve just noticed you said hold Esc while using the cursor. That works in Zap too. Cool! Thanks for that tip.

Edit, on the other hand… Pffft. :)