Marked text manipulation

guy038

Hello, @alan-kilborn and All,

So, as the result of our discussion :

This old post https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/12710/marked-text-manipulation/8

have been updated https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/19189/need-a-copy-marked-lines-feature/7

Cheers,

guy038

Alan Kilborn

Semi-related info:

Part of this current thread is about how to copy text that one has marked via Marking that requires use of a PythonScript.

In a POST in another thread, I provide a script that will select text given conditions specified by user input. That selected text can then be copied.

Similar results thru some different methods; enough to warrant a cross-link, I guess.

Laura Lucas Alday

Can anyone explain quickly how to use the python script? As in which steps I need to do in Notepad++ to run the script.

PeterJones

@Laura-Lucas-Alday

Install PythonScript using Plugins > Plugins Admin
Plugins > Python Script > New Script
Paste the contents and save under someName (whatever name you want)
Plugins > Python Script > Scripts > someName
To add a keyboard shortcut for the script:
Plugins > Python Script > Configuration,
select the someName script and Add to the menu
Restart Notepad++
someName will now be in the main Plugins > Python Script menu, not just in the Scripts submenu
Settings > Shortcut Mapper > Plugin Commands will see the script, and you can assign a keyboard shortcut

Alan Kilborn

@Laura-Lucas-Alday

Peter maybe only made it 99.9999% clear. Perhaps the newbie 0.0001% might still be left wondering…

Peter’s step 4 would be how you actually run the script.

Be advised that in this particular case, you need to have some red-marked text for the script to operate on (hopefully this part is clear).

I think there is an open issue that would make this script’s functionality a native part of Notepad++. I will try to find it…

Alan Kilborn

This may be the issue to which I was referring: https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/6095

Alan Kilborn

At the time of the earlier discussions, there was no way to copy marked text natively in Notepad++, meaning without resorting to scripting. Now (7.9.1-ish) there is:

Just press the indicated button after you already have marked some text.

Note: I have added similar information in this somewhat-related other THREAD.

dinkumoil

@Alan-Kilborn

My preferred solution would have been to select all marked text because this provides more flexibility. This way the user could

copy
cut
delete
change

the marked search results.

To achieve that I wrote the following Lua script (intended to be used with, well, the LuaScript plugin).

-- =============================================================================
-- Add menu entry to select all items marked by find marks
-- =============================================================================

npp.AddShortcut("Select Marked", "", function()
  local indicatorIdx
  local pos, markStart, markEnd
  local hasMarkedItems

  -- Search find marks have indicator number 31
  SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE = 31

  -- Remove selection but do not change cursor position
  editor.Anchor  = editor.CurrentPos
  hasMarkedItems = false

  -- Search find mark indicators and select marked text
  pos = 0
  
  while pos < editor.TextLength do
    if editor:IndicatorValueAt(SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE, pos) == 1 then
      markStart = editor:IndicatorStart(SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE, pos)
      markEnd   = editor:IndicatorEnd(SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE, pos)

      if editor.SelectionEmpty or not editor.MultipleSelection then
        editor:SetSelection(markEnd, markStart)
      else
        editor:AddSelection(markEnd, markStart)
      end

      pos            = markEnd
      hasMarkedItems = true
    end
    
    pos = pos + 1
  end

  -- Scroll last selected element into view. This is only because
  -- Npp/Scintilla will do that anyway when moving the cursor next time
  if hasMarkedItems then
    editor:ScrollCaret()
  end
end)

After adding this code to the startup.lua file and restarting Notepad++, the plugin’s submenu provides a new entry Select Marked which can be assigned to a keyboard shortcut.

Alan Kilborn

@dinkumoil said in Marked text manipulation:

select all marked text because this provides more flexibility. This way the user could

copy
cut
delete
change

That’s a good idea as well, especially for delete and change (although those can be achieved, on a one-off basis, by replace-with-nothing and replace-with something ops).

Copy and cut of selected text would jam all of the text together if it were on a selection basis (probably not really useful that way).

I noticed this new Copy Marked Text command inserts a line-ending between the individual globs of marked text, which seems to make it useful, although to tell the truth I haven’t had a real application for it myself, yet.

dinkumoil

@Alan-Kilborn said in Marked text manipulation:

Copy and cut of selected text would jam all of the text together if it were on a selection basis (probably not really useful that way).

Yes, you are right. Up to now, I’ve used my script only for deleting and editing the selections. But especially being able to multi-edit all occurences of a search term or overwrite them by multi-paste vastly increases productivity.