I can be very picky trying to get a program to behave exactly how I want

Sure, I understand this; I have Notepad++ heavily customized with scripts to have it behave how I want. But…when you do something like this, you have to understand the limitations of the environment you are working within, in order to “not” overstep your bounds.

Using things which hold keys down, writing infinite loops, running multiple scripts before one is finished…all of these are bad ideas in the context of what PythonScript aims to provide to Notepad++ users.

I really don’t know how to provide advice on what to not do, though, until you do it and post here asking for advice on how to solve encountered problems. :-)

In case you don’t know which I mean by simplest, here is the version I have saved as SelectionToRectangle.py in my instance. I am actually going to use that in my workflow occasionally, because I am sometimes on a linux box and remote-desktop-connecting into my windows laptop, and the ALT key doesn’t transmit properly, so previously I wasn’t able to column selection; now I have a simple way to easily switch a normal selection to column selection, without using the ALT key.

# encoding=utf-8
"""
Derived from 22890-simplest.py, in response to https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/22890/

This is the simplest paradigm for converting a stream (normal) selection to rectangular (column):
1) Click or arrow to where you want to start selecting
2) Shift+Click or Shift+arrow to get to the end of the selection (ie, do a normal selection)
3) Run this script to convert the selection from STREAM to rectangle and refresh the screen automatically to see it
"""
from Npp import notepad, editor, SELECTIONMODE, STATUSBARSECTION
editor.setSelectionMode( SELECTIONMODE.RECTANGLE )
notepad.activateFile(notepad.getCurrentFilename()) # use the activateFile() command to refresh UI; otherwise, it doesn't _look_ like column/rectangle select)

Did you not try my scripts? Because both ⇅ and the “simplest” will work, whether you use the keyboard or clicking and dragging. With ⇅ , click where you want to start the selection, then run the script, then click-and-drag to the end of the selection, then run the script, and it will convert that click-and-drag-selection to rectangle. With the “simplest” script, just click-and-drag your selection, then run the script, and it will convert that click-and-drag-selection to rectangle.

The infinite loop will not work for you. Stop trying to make it work. It is the wrong design. Every one of the problems you have run across has proven that to everyone (except you, who seems unwilling to accept an alternate solution that works better).

I have already written multiple scripts, and shown you how it works, in words and in video. If you are unwilling to go this route, I cannot help you beyond this. I am sorry. Good luck.

editor.setSelectionMode(SELECTIONMODE.RECTANGLE)

This is the only way to be able to click and drag rectangle select persistently, it works for arrow key selection as well, only thing is if it is not in an infinite loop then that functionality no longer works.

Edit: Is there a function that can check if another PythonScript is being launched? That would be a good way to break the loop.

I’m wondering how I can make it so that the user can break the infinite loop in my script by clicking on the button for the script again

By writing it without an infinite loop. The three line script I supplied is all you need to be able to easily convert a normal selection to a rectangle/column selection after the selection is made. Or the ⇅ script I showed you will allow a toggle-on/toggle-off without requiring an infinite loop.

I cannot say it any more plainly.

how I can make it so that the user can break the infinite loop in my script

Possible solution: Don’t put an infinite loop in the script in the first place?

“Another script is currently running. Running two scripts at the same time could produce unpredictable results, and is therefore disabled.”

I’m wondering how I can make it so that the user can break the infinite loop in my script by clicking on the button for the script again, essentially making it toggleable. Anyone got an idea? It would be much appreciated.

• if you’re a dedicated keyboardist, you’d have to dive for the mouse in order to hit the toolbar button to change the mode, spoiling being dedicated to the keyboard (where you could just add Alt to your Shift+arrows movement to get a column block).

• if you’re not in love with keyboard-only actions, use the mouse to select text via click and drag; if you start this as a stream selection, you can add a press of Alt to it while you are dragging (can even just tap-n-release Alt) in order to change the selection to a column block type.

But…people will want what they will want, and that’s ok. :-)

So here are some example screenshot-videos of using the two

I assigned the ⇅ button to the “toggle” (the post that has the script with "alternate paradigm" in the comments).

For the ⇅ , I record the sequence

1. start selection with a click
2. click the ⇅ button to start the rectangle/column selection
3. end selection with a click
4. click the ⇅ button to end the rectangle/column selection, and convert it to visually be a rectangle selection
5. start new selection with a click
6. click the ⇅ button to start the rectangle/column selection
7. extend new selection with SHIFT+arrow
8. click the ⇅ button to end the rectangle/column selection, and convert it to visually be a rectangle selection
   

You will see that the status bar reflects the correct state of when you have clicked ⇅ the first time (so the script is in “active” mode), and that it clears itself when you do the second ⇅ (so it’s converted)

---------------------

I assigned the other button to the “simplest” – the three-line version shown in my later post.

For the , I recorded the sequence

1. start the selection with a click
2. extend the selection with SHIFT+ARROW
3. convert the selection to rectangular by calling the 🛈 script
   

This doesn’t show the status, because the button is a one-time thing, not a “in the active mode” thing.

Either should work. Both avoid any low-level programming or callbacks – they just use standard, simple PythonScript calls.

The second has the benefit of being really simple, and doesn’t even need to save state. If you or your user want to convert a normal selection to rectangle, just click the button after making the selection. Don’t need to worry about the status bar. Easiest to use. Easiest to maintain. You can always decide to use that to change any stream selection into a rectangle, whether you were thinking “I need to select a rectangle” or not. Fewer clicks.

Since it apparently confused others, I will be more explicit about the example I gave above: it has a slightly different usage model than your explain seems to imply. If we read your usage model correctly, you want to have this script toggle the “column” mode, and you are then using shift+arrows to make the block selection live.

In my script, I figured: if you don’t want to faff around with ALT, then also don’t faff around with SHIFT. My usage model (for the script shown above) is “run script to start the column/rectangle selection; move cursor (either normal arrow or just click, since you’re already clicking the script on the toolbar); run script to end column/rectangle selection and then refresh the display so it looks like a column selection”.

But if you or your users insist on holding down the SHIFT, my script (above) will also work for that – it will look like a normal selection until the end when you run the script the second time, then it will convert the selection from normal to rectangular.

Which means, really, the script could be simplified to just run

from Npp import editor, notepad, SELECTIONMODE
editor.setSelectionMode(SELECTIONMODE.RECTANGLE)
notepad.activateFile(notepad.getCurrentFilename())

Then the usage model would be “1) move your cursor to the start of where you want to select (via mouse or keyboard); 2) SHIFT+arrow or SHIFT+click to draw a normal selection; 3) run the script to convert the normal selection to a rectangle/column selection”. Fewer clicks. Call the script “convert active selection to rectangle” and be done with it.

editor.getSelectionMode() which returns a 1 (IIRC) for rectangle

That is indeed correct, and this is also available returning True/False: editor.selectionIsRectangle()

That’s what I thought at first. But when I triggered the refresh (the activate file line), it updated and showed that it really did change what was shown to be the rectangle – that’s why I included that line in the script, and included comments to say it was needed to get it to show it’s a rectangle.

You can also tell that it was rectangle by just doing the editor.getSelectionMode() which returns a 1 (IIRC) for rectangle, or just do the copy then paste in the new location, and see it only grabbed the rectangle, not the full lines. Actually, I first saw it was working when I swapped to another tab and then back, and saw it was suddenly a rectangle instead of the stream it looked like.

editor.setSelectionMode( SELECTIONMODE.RECTANGLE )

doesn’t seem to work, I tested it in a simple script with nothing else going on and this makes no changes to the selection mode, I’ve no idea why.

Your paradigm is BAD and causing you problems.

Try this script out for size:

# encoding=utf-8
"""in response to https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/22890/ and 22919

alternate paradigm
"""
from Npp import notepad, editor, SELECTIONMODE, STATUSBARSECTION

try:
    columnSelectMode
    startPos
    endPos
except NameError:
    #console.show()
    console.write('initialize toggle mode for the first time\n')
    columnSelectMode = False
    startPos = None
    endPos = None

if not columnSelectMode:
    startPos = editor.getCurrentPos()
    endPos = startPos
    notepad.setStatusBar(STATUSBARSECTION.DOCTYPE, "In Rectangle/Column Selection Mode")

else:
    endPos = editor.getCurrentPos()
    editor.setSel(startPos, endPos)
    editor.setSelectionMode( SELECTIONMODE.RECTANGLE )

    # this overrides the statusbar.. but the refresh UI will overwrite that with default
    notepad.setStatusBar(STATUSBARSECTION.DOCTYPE, "")

    # use the upcoming activateFile to refresh UI
    #   otherwise, it doesn't _look_ like column/rectangle select)
    notepad.activateFile(notepad.getCurrentFilename())

columnSelectMode = not columnSelectMode

#console.show()
#console.write("toggle selection mode to {}: {} .. {}\n".format(columnSelectMode, startPos, endPos))

check if Notepad++ is closed

You scan do this with NOTIFICATION.SHUTDOWN in a notepad.callback. To see how this works if you don’t know, type notepad.callback into the editor and then invoke PythonScript’s context-sensitive help on it.

There’s also SCINTILLANOTIFICATION.FOCUSOUT which you could experiment with to see if it meets your needs. That one is an editor.callback.

can return whether or not Notepad++ is the active window?

I suppose you could try things with the windows API function GetForegroundWindow.

Do you have any ideas of an alternate way to achieve this?

Yes, here’s a demo script I call RectangularSelectModeToggle.py. Each time it is run (hint: you can tie the running of it to a toolbar button) it toggles the shift+arrows selection functionality between selecting normal (what’s called a stream selection) and a selecting a column block (called rectangular selection). The “Alt” key is not involved. The script is fairly “low level”, and not a short one.

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from __future__ import print_function

from Npp import *
import inspect
import os
import ctypes
from ctypes import wintypes
import platform

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

user32 = ctypes.WinDLL('user32')

notepad.hwnd = user32.FindWindowW(u'Notepad++', None)
editor1.hwnd = user32.FindWindowExW(notepad.hwnd, None, u'Scintilla', None)
editor2.hwnd = user32.FindWindowExW(notepad.hwnd, editor1.hwnd, u'Scintilla', None)

LRESULT = wintypes.LPARAM

WndProcType = ctypes.WINFUNCTYPE(
    LRESULT,  # return type
    wintypes.HWND, wintypes.UINT, wintypes.WPARAM, wintypes.LPARAM  # arguments
    )

running_32bit = platform.architecture()[0] == '32bit'

SetWindowLong = user32.SetWindowLongW if running_32bit else user32.SetWindowLongPtrW
SetWindowLong.restype = WndProcType
SetWindowLong.argtypes = [wintypes.HWND, wintypes.INT, WndProcType]

GWL_WNDPROC = -4

WM_KEYDOWN    = 0x100
WM_KEYUP      = 0x101
WM_SYSKEYDOWN = 0x104
WM_SYSKEYUP   = 0x105
WM_KILLFOCUS  = 0x8

VK_SHIFT         = 0x10
VK_CONTROL       = 0x11
VK_MENU = VK_ALT = 0x12

VK_LEFT  = 0x25
VK_UP    = 0x26
VK_RIGHT = 0x27
VK_DOWN  = 0x28

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

class RSMT(object):

    def __init__(self):

        self.debug = True if 1 else False

        self.this_script_name = inspect.getframeinfo(inspect.currentframe()).filename.split(os.sep)[-1].rsplit('.', 1)[0]

        self.shift_pressed = self.ctrl_pressed = self.alt_pressed = False

        self.altless_rectangular_select_mode_active = False
        # if this mode is active, user doesn't have to hold Alt while pressing Shift+arrows in order to make a rectangular selection

        self.new_editor1_wnd_proc_hook_for_SetWindowLong = WndProcType(self.new_editor1_wnd_proc_hook)
        self.orig_editor1_wnd_proc = SetWindowLong(editor1.hwnd, GWL_WNDPROC, self.new_editor1_wnd_proc_hook_for_SetWindowLong)

        self.new_editor2_wnd_proc_hook_for_SetWindowLong = WndProcType(self.new_editor2_wnd_proc_hook)
        self.orig_editor2_wnd_proc = SetWindowLong(editor2.hwnd, GWL_WNDPROC, self.new_editor2_wnd_proc_hook_for_SetWindowLong)

    def common_editor_wnd_proc_hook(self, hwnd, msg, wParam, lParam):

        retval = True  # default to allowing something other than this code to handle this message

        if msg in [WM_KEYDOWN, WM_SYSKEYDOWN]:

            if   wParam == VK_SHIFT:   self.shift_pressed = True
            elif wParam == VK_CONTROL: self.ctrl_pressed  = True
            elif wParam == VK_ALT:     self.alt_pressed   = True

            elif wParam in [ VK_LEFT, VK_UP, VK_RIGHT, VK_DOWN ]:

                modifiers = ''
                modifiers += 'SHIFT+' if self.shift_pressed else ''
                modifiers += 'CTRL+'  if self.ctrl_pressed  else ''
                modifiers += 'ALT+'   if self.alt_pressed   else ''
                key = ''
                key += 'LEFT'  if wParam == VK_LEFT  else ''
                key += 'UP'    if wParam == VK_UP    else ''
                key += 'RIGHT' if wParam == VK_RIGHT else ''
                key += 'DOWN'  if wParam == VK_DOWN  else ''
                self.print(modifiers + key)

                if self.altless_rectangular_select_mode_active:

                    if self.shift_pressed and not self.ctrl_pressed and not self.alt_pressed:

                        retval = False  # allow no further processing of this message; it will be handled here

                        if wParam   == VK_LEFT:  editor.charLeftRectExtend()
                        elif wParam == VK_UP:    editor.lineUpRectExtend()
                        elif wParam == VK_RIGHT: editor.charRightRectExtend()
                        elif wParam == VK_DOWN:  editor.lineDownRectExtend()

        elif msg in [WM_KEYUP, WM_SYSKEYUP]:

            if wParam   == VK_SHIFT:   self.shift_pressed = False
            elif wParam == VK_CONTROL: self.ctrl_pressed  = False
            elif wParam == VK_ALT:     self.alt_pressed   = False

        elif msg == WM_KILLFOCUS:

            self.shift_pressed = self.ctrl_pressed = self.alt_pressed = False

        return retval

    def new_editor1_wnd_proc_hook(self, hwnd, msg, wParam, lParam):
        retval = self.common_editor_wnd_proc_hook(hwnd, msg, wParam, lParam)
        if retval: retval = self.orig_editor1_wnd_proc(hwnd, msg, wParam, lParam)
        return retval

    def new_editor2_wnd_proc_hook(self, hwnd, msg, wParam, lParam):
        retval = self.common_editor_wnd_proc_hook(hwnd, msg, wParam, lParam)
        if retval: retval = self.orig_editor2_wnd_proc(hwnd, msg, wParam, lParam)
        return retval

    def toggle(self):
        editor.setEmptySelection(editor.getCurrentPos())
        self.altless_rectangular_select_mode_active = not self.altless_rectangular_select_mode_active
        self.mb('Alt-less column select mode is now {}'.format('active' if self.altless_rectangular_select_mode_active else 'inactive'))

    def print(self, *args):
        if self.debug:
            #console.show()
            print('RSMT:', *args)

    def mb(self, msg, flags=0, title=''):  # a message-box function
        return notepad.messageBox(msg, title if title else self.this_script_name, flags)

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if __name__ == '__main__':
    try:
        rsmt
    except NameError:
        rsmt = RSMT()
    rsmt.toggle()

If your goal is to have the “alt” key behave as “sticky”, Windows OS has an accessibility feature (“ease of access - keyboard”) for that.

https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+10+sticky+alt+key =>
https://winaero.com/turn-on-or-off-sticky-keys-in-windows-10/ or https://www.howtogeek.com/739764/how-to-turn-off-sticky-keys-on-windows-10/ or …

No need to highjack the Alt key or any such thing.