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    • ImNot GlennDanzigI
      ImNot GlennDanzig
      last edited by

      Can someone please answer this simple question before I throw myself out a window…
      I use Alt+left key and drag the mouse down to create a vertical line on notepad++. When I let go of the mouse why won’t the line stay there…lolol. Couple screen shots attached in case my explanation was as inept as I feel. I must be getting (terribly) old. Thanks everyone.
      pic 1 Pic 1 is when I let go of the mouse (just flashes)
      pic 2 Pic 2 is when I click anything else. (disappears)

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • moon6969M
        moon6969
        last edited by

        Hi Glenn,

        Are you trying to draw a line or select a block of text?
        Alt-drag is to start a block select.

        Press Alt
        Left-drag mouse down and right to select required block…
        Imgur

        Click ctrl-c to copy the text, move the cursor to desired location and ctrl-v to paste the block…
        Imgur

        Cheers,
        moon

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • AdrianHHHA
          AdrianHHH
          last edited by

          The alt+left and drag the mouse selects some text in column mode, see https://notepad-plus-plus.org/features/column-mode-editing.html . It is not a line drawing facility. If you select an area that is zero characters wide then you have selected nothing, but a flashing cursor should stay on the vertical area that has been selected, allowing you to enter the same character on each line, or to delete characters on each line.

          I find I have to be careful with the mouse when doing column mode selections. Sometimes as I lift my finger off of the mouse (i.e. to end the click) I also move the mouse and so the wrong area gets selected.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • ImNot GlennDanzigI
            ImNot GlennDanzig
            last edited by

            First of all thx for the help and the feedback. Much appreciated . Most of this is still pretty foreign to me still but you think making a straight line down a page would be something at least doable. There are hundreds of tutorials online from basic to expert. There are many user comments and request for it and the answer is always the same. No one has said how to get the line to stay there. That just seems odd to me. No one on the last 30 years via Notepad 1 or 2, Wordpad, or Notepad++ has ever just wanted to make a straight line from top to bottom. Many things are used for tasks that are “not as intended” for. Say, for example bounce sheets for cleaning your bathroom, greasy dishes and just about anything white… …Or tooth paste for your cell phone screen., ink/stubborn stains, coins or your auto headlights. If you look at my pic of the Holy Red Grail I reposted the line is right there. Thats all I want to do. There is no reasoning behind it really . I just wanna know why …Some people search for God, some for inner peace but I just wanna no why i can’t make a vertical straight line in Notepad++. So like God and inner peace I will jst have to let it go…Hahahahaha. Thx again …and all the best to you both…

            P.S. I also have a an all in one question in regards to site building, code layout and webhosting. Any advice on where would be a friendly place to ask ?

            Claudia FrankC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • AdrianHHHA
              AdrianHHH
              last edited by

              Notepad++ is a text editor, it is not a picture editor. Simple text files do not contain “straight lines” but they can contain sequences of characters that give the appearance of a straight line. So you can type a whole lot of equals (=) or hyphens (-) or underscores (_) and get horizontal lines such as

              ===============--------------_______________
              

              You can get vertical lines by using vertical bar (|) or exclamation point (!) or even the letter I (I) or the digit one (1). By using column mode (i.e. the alt plus drag) you can select a zero-width area as high as desired. Then typing a single character will enter that character on every line that the selection spans.

              Hence it is reasonable easy to draw simple diagrams such as:

              .       +------------------+
              .       |                  |
              .       |                  |
              .       +==================+
              .       |                  |
              .       |                  V
              .       |======>
              .             Example
              .                    <=====+
              .       A                  |
              .       |                  |
              .       +------------------+
              

              (I only added the dots (.) at the left to make it format correctly in this forum.)

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • Claudia FrankC
                Claudia Frank @ImNot GlennDanzig
                last edited by

                @ImNot-GlennDanzig

                could it be that you are looking for the vertical edge line? (Settings->Preferences->Editing)

                This is a global setting which would affect all documents and only one
                vertical line at a specific column can be displayed.

                Cheers
                Claudia

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • go2toG
                  go2to
                  last edited by

                  You talking about a great feature in a great text editor: QEdit.

                  Qedit is, in my book, the greatest text editor of all time. It was the darling of the 1990s. It was the Memo editor of choice in dBaseIII+. Exception: Microsoft. M$ did their best (worst, actually) to kill, or at least undermine, QEdit. Alas! The command prompt QEdit is 16-bit only. I keep an old PC with 32-bit Windows just to run 16-bit legacy software apps that are still very useful.

                  Qedit can draw all kinds of rectangular shapes and lines. It simply prints on screen the corresponding ASCII characters. You can do it manually in Npp, but it is extremely tedious (via Alt+numeric pad).

                  It would be fairly easy to implement a line-drawing function in Notepad++ similar to that great function in the Q editor.

                  Unfortunately, the author of Npp is submerged in personal “programming pleasures” that lately do nothing useful. In fact, the inclination is really bad with the introduction of Document Peeker. It is so bad that users have serious complaints about Find / Replace especially in files. The author, in his defense, strongly recommends to leave that feature disabled. Well, then, why added the function? To create headaches? Even freebies may be liable…

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -2
                  • go2toG
                    go2to
                    last edited by

                    Here is a screenshot of lines and boxes drawn in QEdit. The design looks quite complex, but the process is very easy (after you learn the feature!) It represents also a great programming solution for menuing at the command prompt.

                    Draw lines, boxes in text editors

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • go2toG
                      go2to
                      last edited by

                      Terrible post editor here!!! Edit allowed only within 180 seconds!!! New post allowed only after 1200 seconds!!!

                      Correct image link:
                      Draw lines, boxes in text editors

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • cipher-1024C
                        cipher-1024
                        last edited by

                        The answer @AdrianHHH gave is spot-on. I’m just going to add a couple of things to think about. Wherever you ‘draw’ a vertical line, everything to the left of it gets padded with spaces. That’s fine if you’re done with your text file and you don’t want to edit it again. Once you start editing, you have to delete/add spaces to get the vertical bars to line up again. At that point you’re starting to get into ASCII art. If you’re going to be editing your text file a lot, you’re in for a world of hurt. And THAT, my friend, is why people don’t draw vertical lines in their text files.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • go2toG
                          go2to
                          last edited by

                          @cipher-1024 said:

                          draw vertical

                          Now, what you saying is playing sane to the doctors’ gathering. Draw ASCII characters — one at a time — via Alt+Numricpad-3-character-Char$ — to just draw one character of a box!

                          “Once you start editing, you have to delete/add spaces to get the vertical bars to line up again. At that point you’re starting to get into ASCII art.”

                          In other words, it is the art of escaping medication…

                          You CANNOT “draw vertical” — It is all horizontal, as in “6 feet underground….”

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote -1
                          • guy038G
                            guy038
                            last edited by guy038

                            Hello, @go2to and All,

                            • Open a new tab, in N++

                            • Choose, if necessary, the UTF-8 encoding ( Menu option Encoding > Convert to UTF-8 BOM )

                            • Choose, if necessary, the default Courier New font ( Menu Settings > Style Configurator… > Global Styles > Default Style )

                            • Choose, if necessary, the default zoom value ( Ctrl + Num. / )

                            • Paste the text, below, with box drawing elements, which is identical to go2to’s image :

                            
                            ╒════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╕
                            │                             Select the function:                               │
                            ├─────┬────────────────────────────────╥─────┬────────────--─────────────────────┤
                            │  F  │ FFG: N trials from p & DC      ║  E  │ 'Exactly' M successes in N trials │
                            ├─────┼────────────────────────────────╫─────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
                            │  C  │ Degree of Certainty (DC)       ║  L  │ 'At Least' M successes in N trials│
                            ├─────┼────────────────────────────────╫─────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
                            │  P  │ Probability for Median & N     ║  M  │ 'At Most' M successes in N trials │
                            ├─────┼────────────────────────────────╫─────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
                            │  D  │ Standard deviation             ║  N  │ Normal Probability rule           │
                            ├─────┼────────────────────────────────╫─────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
                            │  H  │ Hypergeometric Distribution    ║  W  │ 'Win At Least' Lotto & PowerBall  │
                            ├─────┼────────────────────────────────╫─────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
                            │  H  │ Hypergeometric Distribution    ║  W  │ 'Win At Least' Lotto & PowerBall  │
                            ├─────┼────────────────────────────────╫─────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
                            │  O  │ Calculate Lotto Odds           ║  S  │ Miscellanea (Sums, Shuffle, N!)   │
                            ╘═════╧═══════════════╤═════╤══════════╩═════╧═════════════════╤═════════════════╛
                                                  │  X  │ Exit This Fantastic Application! │
                            				      ╘═════╧══════════════════════════════════╛
                            
                            

                            Et voilà !

                            Refer to the complete Unicode Box drawing block ( between \x{2500} and \x{257F} ), at the address, below :

                            http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2500.pdf

                            Here is, below, four tables, containing all the Box drawing characters of the Courier New font. It may help you, with some copy-paste operations, to create text, as above ! ( The hexadecimal code-point of each box-drawing character is added ! )

                            
                               2554                    2566                     2557          250C                    252C                     2510
                                   ╔═══════ 2550 ═══════╦═════════ 2550 ══════╗                   ┌─────── 2500 ───────┬───────── 2500 ──────┐
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │  
                                  2551                 2551                  2551                2502                 2502                  2502
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                              2560 ╠═══════ 2550 ═══════╬═════════ 2550 ══════╣ 2563         251C ├─────── 2500 ───────┼───────── 2500 ──────┤ 2524
                                   ║                    ║ 256C                ║                   │                    │ 253C                │
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                                  2551                 2551                  2551                2502                 2502                  2502
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                                   ╚═══════ 2550 ═══════╩═════════ 2550 ══════╝                   └─────── 2500 ───────┴───────── 2500 ──────┘
                               255A                    2569                     255D          2514                    2534                     2518
                            
                            
                            
                            
                               2553                    2565                     2556          2552                    2564                     2555
                                   ╓─────── 2500 ───────╥───────── 2500 ──────╖                   ╒═══════ 2550 ═══════╤═════════ 2550 ══════╕
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │  
                                  2551                 2551                  2551                2502                 2502                  2502
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                              255F ╟─────── 2500 ───────╫───────── 2500 ──────╢ 2562         255E ╞═══════ 2550 ═══════╪═════════ 2550 ══════╡ 2561
                                   ║                    ║ 256B                ║                   │                    │ 256A                │
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                                  2551                 2551                  2551                2502                 2502                  2502
                                   ║                    ║                     ║                   │                    │                     │
                                   ╙─────── 2500 ───────╨───────── 2500 ──────╜                   ╘═══════ 2550 ═══════╧═════════ 2550 ══════╛
                               2559                    2568                     255C          2558                    2567                     255B
                             
                            

                            IMPORTANT : Although text, in reverse video, does not seem correctly aligned, once you paste the text in N++, it should be OK !!

                            Best Regards,

                            guy038

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • go2toG
                              go2to
                              last edited by

                              Guy,

                              The vertical lines in your box are not continuous as in the original created in QEdit. It’s like a translation of Guy de Maupassant compared to the original. Ça va?

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • guy038G
                                guy038
                                last edited by guy038

                                Hi, @go2to and All,

                                Of course, I agree that, with some zoom values, lines are discontinuous :-((

                                On my Windows XP screen, the “good” values of N++ zoom seem to be :

                                -3 , -2 , 0 (Ctrl + Num. /), +3 , +6 , +8 , +11

                                Cheers,

                                guy038

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • ImNot GlennDanzigI
                                  ImNot GlennDanzig
                                  last edited by

                                  Wow…you guys are awesome!! Sorry for the late reply. Been trying to find a host for my sites. The world is literally insane btw. Lol. Anyway thanks everyone for the help. I knew there had to be away. You guys are all amazing. I was a little hesitant to ask this question knowing what a wanted to do wasn’t a normal Notepad task. You all were very kind and kept on point and i appreciate that as well. I know I’ll be back if even if it’s just to drop by and roam (lurk) around. Lol. Take care everyone and until next time ^^GoDsPeEd^^

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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