How to paste a selection in the same way as typing in overwrite mode?

Mike de Vogel

As a programmer i sometimes have to replace certain pieces of a line, without the rest of the line indenting/unindenting.
I am aware of the rectanglular selection and pasting etc, but i want to be able to paste my text OVER old text.
See it as a “overwrite paste”.

For example:
FG,BG,BK,RD,GN

At the spot of BG,BK (5 characters) i want to paste the text ASDAS (5 characters) to make:
FG,ASDAS,RD,GN

But if my selection was the text ASD (3 characters) it would have made:
FG,ASDBK,RD,GN

If my selection was the text ASDASDAS (9 characters) it would have made:
FG,ASDASDAS,GN

I want to do this WITHOUT first selecting the text, but just stand in front of the text and press CTRL+V;
FG,(putting the cursor here and pressing CTRL+V)

Is there a way to make this possible? It’s just like typing in overwrite mode but instead of typing i want to paste text over the old text.

Seems like a simple idea i guess, maybe i’m missing something.

Alan Kilborn

@Mike-de-Vogel

If you are willing to use the Pythonscript plugin, it is relatively trivial to make something like this possible. Natively, however, I don’t believe Notepad++ can do such an overwrite paste.

Mike de Vogel

@Alan-Kilborn That’s cool, i’ll be willing to use that if it’s possible that way!

Can you help me with that?

Thanks!

Alan Kilborn

@Mike-de-Vogel

Can you help me with that?

Sure, here’s a first cut at a Pythonscript to do it:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from Npp import editor, notepad

try:
    editor3h
except NameError:
    editor3h = notepad.createScintilla()

def clipboard_get_text():
    editor3h.setText('')
    editor3h.paste()
    paste_buffer_text = editor3h.getText()
    return editor3h.getText()

def main():
    ct = clipboard_get_text()
    if len(ct) > 0:
        cp = editor.getCurrentPos()
        new_cp = cp + len(ct)
        if new_cp > editor.getLength() - 1: new_cp = editor.getLength() - 1
        if [ '\r\n', '\r', '\n' ][editor.getEOLMode()] == '\r\n':
            print('got here a')
            if new_cp < editor.getLength() - 1:
                print('->', editor.getCharAt(new_cp))
                if editor.getCharAt(new_cp) == 10: new_cp -= 1  # don't insert BETWEEN a \r\n pair
        editor.setSelection(cp, new_cp)
        editor.replaceSel(ct)

main()

To obtain and use Pythonscript (perhaps the most difficult part of all this), there are some guides at the following locations.

If you use “installed” Notepad++, see:

If you use “portable” Notepad++, see:

https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/16942/pythonscript-any-ready-pyscript-to-replace-one-huge-set-of-regex-phrases-with-others/11

Alan Kilborn

@Alan-Kilborn said in How to paste a selection in the same way as typing in overwrite mode?:

print(‘got here a’)

Oops; delete that line! Just for debugging! :-)