Replace current line without inserting a new line

guy038

Hello Yaron, Scoot and Claudia,

I don’t want to disturb, in any way, your interesting discussion, about Python operators precedence ( and other goodies, that I can’t understand, yet ! ) but I, simply, created three macros, that seem to emulate the behaviour that you prefer, Yaron, AFAIK !!

So :

Close any instance of Notepad++
Start an OTHER editor than notepad++
Open, in that editor, the Shortcuts.xml file

Insert, at the beginning of this file, inside the <Macros> section, the XML text below :

  <Macro name="Cut        Current Line w/o EOL" Ctrl="yes" Alt="yes" Shift="no" Key="88">
      <Action type="0" message="2453" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2453" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2345" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2452" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2452" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2177" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2180" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
  </Macro>
  <Macro name="Copy     Current Line w/o EOL" Ctrl="yes" Alt="yes" Shift="no" Key="67">
      <Action type="0" message="2453" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2453" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2345" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2452" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2452" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2178" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2304" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
  </Macro>
  <Macro name="Replace Current line by Clipboard" Ctrl="yes" Alt="yes" Shift="no" Key="86">
      <Action type="0" message="2453" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2453" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2345" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2452" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2452" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2179" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2453" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2453" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
      <Action type="0" message="2345" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
  </Macro>

Save the changes, done in the Shortcuts.xml file
Re-start Notepad++

=> In the macros list, you should have three additional entries :

Cut     Current Line w/o EOL       Ctrl + Alt + X

Copy    Current Line w/o EOL       Ctrl + Alt + C

Replace Current Line by Clipboard  Ctrl + Alt + V

Hypotheses :

I suppose that the Scintilla commands : Home, Alt + Home, Shift + End, Left Arrow and Suppr are the default ones !
I, also, suppose that the classical Ctrl + X , Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V commands are the default ones, too.
Finally, the three shortcuts Ctrl + Alt + X, Ctrl + Alt + C and Ctrl + Alt + V should not be used, yet

Notes :

After execution of the two macros Copy Current Line w/o EOL and Replace Current Line by Clipboard, the caret is moved back, at the very beginning of the current line
After execution of the macro Cut Current Line w/o EOL, the caret is located, of course, at the very beginning of the next line
These macros work nice, whatever :
- The current logical line Begins, or not, by some blank characters
- The current logical line is wrapped, or not
- The current logical line is split on several physical lines, preceded, or not, by any indentation
- The present cursor location, in this current logical line
- The EOL characters of the current logical line ( CRLF, LF or CR )
- The current logical line is not terminated by any EOL characters ( case of the very last line of the file ! )

So, let’s consider the simple text, of five lines, below :

First  line to copy
Second line to cut
Third  line to be replaced by the first line
Fourth line to be replaced by the second line
Fifth  line to end

Put the cursor, anywhere, in the First line
Select the macro Macros - Copy Current Line w/o EOL OR hit the Alt + Ctrl + C shortcut
Put the cursor, anywhere, in the Third line
Select the macro Macros - Replace Current Line by Clipboard OR hit the Alt + Ctrl + V shortcut

=> You should get the modified text, below :

First  line to copy
Second line to cut
First  line to copy
Fourth line to be replaced by the second line
Fifth  line to end

Now, put the cursor, anywhere, in the Second line
Select the macro Macros - Cut Current Line w/o EOL OR hit the Alt + Ctrl + X shortcut
Put the cursor, anywhere, in the Fourth line
Select the macro Macros - Replace Current Line by Clipboard OR hit the Alt + Ctrl + V shortcut

=> The final result should be :

First  line to copy
First  line to copy
Second line to cut
Fifth  line to end

Remarks :

If you use the macro Copy Current Line w/o EOL then put the cursor inside any other line and, finally, use the default CTRL + V command, the current line, while executing the macro, is just inserted, at the new cursor location
Inversely, if you use the default CTRL + C, to select some lines, then put the cursor inside any other line and, finally, use the macro Replace Current Line by Clipboard, the copied lines will replace the current line, while executing the macro !
Note, also, that executing, consecutively, several times, any of the two macros Copy Current Line w/o EOL AND/OR Replace Current Line by Clipboard does NOT change the current line at all !!
However, executing, several times, the macro Cut Current Line w/o EOL deletes the consecutive current lines, keeping the last one, only, in the clipboard, in order to replace any other current line, while executing the Replace Current Line by Clipboard macro
To end, a very nice trick : if, after using the Copy Current Line w/o EOL OR the Cut Current Line w/o EOL macro, you’re wrong, using the normal paste command ( Ctrl + V ), no panic ! Just execute the Replace Current Line by Clipboard macro ( or Ctrl + Alt + V ), just after :-))

Best Regards,

guy038

P.S. :

You’ve , certainly, noticed that I used, sometimes, in macros, two identical consecutive commands, as Home or Shift + End. These forms are necessary, when the lines are wrapped, in several physical lines and, even more, when a wrapped line is preceded by some leading blank characters !

Claudia Frank

Hello guy,

what took longer, finding out how to get this solved using macros
or writing this?? ;-)))

Another goody

Cheers
Claudia

cmeriaux

@guy038
for the record, you can edit shortcut.xml in notepad++ as long as do don’t change any shortcut through shortcut mapper. shortcuts.xml is overwritten only when a shortcut is modified.

Scott Sumner

Let’s not talk about how this topic has diverged… guy038, regarding your statement about “two identical consecutive commands”, it seems that this isn’t predictable.

Case 1: [single line, indented, caret in middle of line somewhere] 2 presses of “home” take caret to start of line; 3 move the caret to the first character of the indented text

Case 2: [indented, word-wrap on, caret in middle of 2nd line of a wrapped line] 3 presses of “home” take caret to start of line

I’m just wondering how it is possible to write consistent macros with this differing behavior; hopefully it is understood what I mean. Maybe one more thing to clarify: It seems that with the Case 1/2 behavior I’ve described, guy038’s macros would not quite know for sure if they are getting all the text on the line (seems like it would be easy to lose the leading indent in one case)…

Yaron

Hello all,

@Claudia,
Thanks again for the great script. I highly appreciate that.

I think you have to close the clipboard whether it contains text or anything else.
(Otherwise, if it contains an image the clipboard is locked and access denied).

import ctypes

def Get():
	if ctypes.windll.user32.OpenClipboard(None):
		clipboard_handle = ctypes.windll.user32.GetClipboardData(1)
		if clipboard_handle:
			pointer_to_content = ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalLock(clipboard_handle)
			clipboard_data = ctypes.c_char_p(pointer_to_content).value
			ctypes.windll.kernel32.GlobalUnlock(clipboard_handle)
		else:
			clipboard_data = -1	

		ctypes.windll.user32.CloseClipboard()
	else:
		clipboard_data = -2
		
	return 	clipboard_data

print Get()

Or am I missing anything?

@Guy,
Thank you very much for the Macro.
Beautifully written and explained as always.

As a “mouse-oriented” user I didn’t know about the double “Home” in warped lines.
Thanks for that too.

As for Python:
I suggest that you start with the simple script I posted at the beginning of this thread.
You would soon be offering solutions both in Regex and Python. :)

@Scott,
Could you please post an example to your comment regarding Guy’s Macro?

The Golf was worthwhile.
We got two new gems from Claudia and Guy, didn’t we?
Thanks again for your kind help.

Best regards.

guy038

Hi, All,

Many thanks, cmeriaux, I didn’t know that fact, relative to the shortcuts.wml file ! So, it’s even more simple to get the Shortcuts.xml file modified :-))

Yaron, it’s very kind of you to encourage me to try Python language and script. I promise you I will, as soon as possible. But, recently, I’ve had some health’s problems and I did not want to be involved, just now, in important tasks, as learning a new language !

Moreover, by that time, Yaron, Claudia and Scott, I’ll have to decide between Python 2.7 or Python 3.5 ! I’ve been told that if you do not know Python, the best is to switch, directly, to Python 3.5. However, the Dave’s N++ Python script is based on Python 2.7 ? So ?

Also, is it better to begin with Python script OR with the language itself ?

BTW, I also glanced at the Dail’s Lua script. The script language seems, slightly, more easy to read and code. But, Yaron, Claudia and Scott, don’t feel offended, in any way ! It’s just a “newbe” opinion !!

Scott, I apologize because, in my previous Post-Scriptum, I didn’t fully explain all the Scintilla commands needed to move, in all cases, the caret at the very beginning of any line ! I was, already, a bit tired to create the main part of this post, anyway ! So :

Do you know, Scott, about the two Scintilla commands Alt + Home and Alt + End ? They allow, on wrapped lines, when the caret is in the middle of a specific line, to move it, exclusively, at the very beginning of that line OR at the end of that line !

Of course, I, first, considered that I needed to hit 3 times, on the Home key, to get the column 1, if the current logical line was wrapped, with some leading spaces and that the caret was NOT in the first physical line !

However, if the caret is on the first physical line of that wrapped logical line, after 3 Home actions, the caret is closed to the first non-blank character, of the first physical line. That was not what I expected :-((

Now, instead of the actions Home, Home, Home, if we consider the 3 actions Home, Home, Alt + Home Nice, indeed : the last Scintilla command forces the caret to stay in column 1 :-))

So, without any ambiguity, I can affirm that, whatever the kind of a line ( wrapped or not and/or with leading blank characters or not ) the 3 consecutive actions Home, Home, Alt + Home, always move the caret, from any position on that line to its very beginning ( column 1 )

On the contrary, two actions End, End are enough to move the caret at the very end of any line ! Thus, from the very beginning of any line, the two actions Shift + End, Shift + End allow to select all the contents of the current line, without its EOL characters :-))

For memory, the list of Scintilla commands, used in these three macros, are, by chronological order :

Cut Current Line w/o EOL           :     Home     Home     Alt + Home     Shift + End     Shift + End     Ctrl + X     Suppr

Copy Current Line w/o EOL          :     Home     Home     Alt + Home     Shift + End     Shift + End     Ctrl + C     Left Arrow

Replace Current Line by Clipboard  :     Home     Home     Alt + Home     Shift + End     Shift + End     Ctrl + V     Home     Home     Alt + Home

Finally, the sequence :

Home     Home     Alt + Home     Shift + End     Shift + End

simply, means : select all text, between the very beginning and the end of any line, whatever the caret position, on that line !

BTW, I also verified that my macros work fine, whatever the 3 kinds of line wrapping, defined in Settings - Preferences… - Editing - Line Wrap ( Default / Aligned / Indent ) !

Cheers,

guy038

Claudia Frank

@Yaron,

you are correct but there is the close available.

ctypes.windll.user32.CloseClipboard()

and, msdn states

An application should call the CloseClipboard function after every successful call to OpenClipboard.

so there is no reason to call CloseClipboard in the else branch. Or did I misunderstood something?

This script was quickly written, normally you would define each function and parameters as well as return values
error checks etc… separately and maybe wrap it into a try-except-finally block and, as already stated, make sure to call
openclipboard more often in case it is locked by another application.

Cheers
Claudia

Claudia Frank

@Guy,

there are differences in py3 and 2 but the changes aren’t to complicated.
Py3 got more features than 2 but, afaik, Py2 still has more 3rd party modules
and when it comes to incooperate with C API, I like Py2 because strings are bytes
whereas in Py3 string is unicode.
A list of changes https://wiki.python.org/moin/Python2orPython3

And if you like Lua more, no problem, I still will read your excellent posts ;-)
Lua has its advantages, small, fast and extensible - it’s good - and I use it
to write wireshark plugins and reconfigure my home router. So …

Cheers
Claudia

Yaron

Hello Guy and Claudia,

@Guy,
First, I’d like to wish you a speedy recovery. I do hope it’s not anything serious.

I’m glad you find the time to help us here. Thanks again for the clever macro.

I’d love to start using Dail’s Lua Script but I’ve been waiting for an option to add scripts to the menu.

Claudia has recommended Py2. She is the master.

Also, is it better to begin with Python script OR with the language itself ?

I’d suggest to take the plunge and start with a simple script. Experiment a bit and then combine it with a more methodical learning of the language.

I’d be glad to dissect and analyze snippets of code with you.
I’m not good at searching the documentation but I’m sure Claudia and Scott would kindly help us. :)

Best of luck!

@Claudia,
Thanks again. I do appreciate your patience.

Please try the following steps:
Run the script.
Copy an image to the clipboard.
Try coping some text in NPP.

Result:
The text is not copied as the clipboard is locked.
NPP does not notify you of that (a minor issue) but other editors (e.g. EditPad) do.

I haven’t read the documentation.
It’s possible that using GetClipboardData(1) when the clipboard contains an image is still “successful”. Or the writer was not very accurate. :)

Best regards.

Claudia Frank

@Yaron,

hahahaha - master - I’m far away from being the master as I have proven again.
I’m returning before closing the clipboard - good job.
Your version works ok for me ;-)
If I’ve still missed it - give me a kick ähh hint. ;-)

Cheers
Claudia

Yaron

@Claudia,

You are the undisputed master! And Shirley Holmes! :)
What have you proven? You wrote it quickly and didn’t try the constellation I did.

If I’ve still missed it -

Not sure I understand that. :)

Allow me a quick off-topic question:
If you use “Block Comment” in a PY file, the current line (not selected) is commented.
If you then use “Block Uncomment”, the line is not uncommented.

Is that a bug?

Thank you.
BR

Claudia Frank

@Yaron,

thx for the kind words but as said, being a master … maybe in 10 years.

Actually I never used block un-/comment as I quickly discovered that
selecting lines of codes and using single line un-/comment worked well.
I even think, that I was using this technique quite some time before I found out
that there is a block comment function.

I don’t think it is a bug as the language itself doesn’t have such functionality.
I don’t have access to my repository because I don’t have any windows environment at the moment,
so can’t really easily analyze the npp source code but a quick look to github page seems to confirm
my assumption. Npp is trying to get the start and end comment line for the language but as not
found returns. (Notepad_plus.cpp line >3700 …)

Cheers
Claudia

Yaron

Hello Claudia,

Thank you for looking into it and for the detailed explanation. I appreciate it.

Good night. :)