npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste

mkupper

I’m running a fresh copy of npp v8.6 portable and have:

111
222
333
444
555

aaa
bbb
ccc
ddd
eee

I move the text cursor to the end of the 555 line and while holding the Shift and Alt keys down I do Home Up-arrow four times to create a 5x3 selection.

I release Shift+Alt and then do Ctrl-C which loads the 5x3 column into the copy/paste buffer.

I do down arrow six times to position the 5-line high cursor in front of the aaa to eee lines.

I do Ctrl-V and get:

111
222
333
444
555

555aaa
444bbb
333ccc
222ddd
111eee

I see that the lines within my 5x3 selection are reversed. If I paste the same 5x3 selection into plain old Microsoft Notepad or this forum I get

If I perform the same test using Notepad++ v8.5.8 or older I get the result I expected which is:

111
222
333
444
555

111aaa
222bbb
333ccc
444ddd
555eee

The above seems to indicate the reversal was done when I pasted.

With v8.6 if that initial selection is made top-down with the cursor at the beginning of the 111 line and then with Shift+Alt using the arrow keys to go down and to the right (the order of the right and down arrows does not matter) to form that 5x3 selection, release Shift+Alt and then Ctrl-C then it works and the lines are not reversed.

However, dealing with multi-cursors while trying to position in front of aaa … eee is awful. I have found that Right, Right, and then Down, Down, Down, … works. However, this may be causing npp to quietly change modes. For example, if after I make the selection and Ctrl-C if I use any arrow key and then Esc to get out of multi-cursor then a paste delivers a column that runs from 111 to 555 as expected.

Coises

Confirmed here.

As a side note, notice that if you select the 111-555 as a rectangular selection by any method and copy, then click before eee, then Ctrl+click, in order, before ddd, ccc, bbb and aaa, you’ll get the same result.

I am nearly certain this is what is happening:

When a rectangular selection is copied, it is copied in top-down order (regardless of the selection direction).

When a multiple selection is copied, it is copied in selection order.

When pasting into a rectangular selection or a thin selection, the paste is done in top-down order (regardless of the selection direction).

When pasting into a multiple selection, the paste is done in selection order.

When a rectangular selection is active and an arrow key is pressed, as of 8.6 the result is an empty multiple selection, the order of which is the same as the direction in which the rectangular selection was made (either top-down or bottom-up).

So the mode change was actually happening when you pressed an arrow key after copying. The copy was made in top-down order (because it was a rectangular selection, and rectangular selections are always copied from or pasted into top-down), but the cursors were now in bottom-up order, the way you selected the rectangle, and the top-down copy was pasted bottom-up into the empty multiple selection.

Given what I read in the discussion leading up to this change, I have a sinking feeling this constitutes “working as designed.” :-(

I’m thinking, at least, since rectangular selections are always treated as top-down regardless of how they are made, if they must convert to empty multiple selections on arrow keys, at least the multiple selection should be top-down, regardless of how the rectangular selection was made. But I suspect those who use multiple selections more than rectangular selections will disagree.

astewart77

@Coises said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

When pasting into a rectangular selection or a thin selection, the paste is done in top-down order (regardless of the selection direction).

What I see is the selection direction before copy doesn’t matter, but the selection direction of the target rectangular or thin selection does. Select up, copy, select down -> results are down. Select down, copy, select up -> results are up.

Separate thought: As an avid multi-edit user, the target order is a feature. You can select down or up, copy, select in a completely arbitrary order and paste, as a quick way to rearrange selections ( say 1,2,3,4 -> 4,1,3,2 ).

Coises

@astewart77 said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

What I see is the selection direction before copy doesn’t matter, but the selection direction of the target rectangular or thin selection does. Select up, copy, select down -> results are down. Select down, copy, select up -> results are up.

Are you sure both selections — the one at the time you copy, and the one at the time you paste — are rectangular selections and not multiple stream selections?

Except for thin selections (which only happen after you type text into a rectangular selection), you can tell by looking at the status bar; rectangular selections show Sel : rows x columns = characters while multiple stream selections show Sel selections : characters | lines.

(Thin selections, for some reason I don’t know, show Sel rows : 0 | rows; however, they behave exactly like zero-width rectangular selections, except for how they look in the status bar.)

I cannot find a case where copy and paste with both being rectangular selections reverses order. In every sample I’ve tried, Notepad++ behaves as if rectangular selections were copied from and pasted into from top to bottom, but multiple stream selections are copied from and pasted into in the order in which the pieces were selected.

Coises

@astewart77 said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

Separate thought: As an avid multi-edit user, the target order is a feature. You can select down or up, copy, select in a completely arbitrary order and paste, as a quick way to rearrange selections ( say 1,2,3,4 -> 4,1,3,2 ).

I figured as much (which is what I meant when I wrote, “But I suspect those who use multiple selections more than rectangular selections will disagree”). I doubt any of this is going to change, and expect that we who use rectangular selections often and multiple stream selections rarely will simply have to get used to what, to us, are anomalies. At least they are predictable anomalies, once understood.

astewart77

@Coises said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

@astewart77 said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

What I see is the selection direction before copy doesn’t matter, but the selection direction of the target rectangular or thin selection does. Select up, copy, select down -> results are down. Select down, copy, select up -> results are up.

Are you sure both selections — the one at the time you copy, and the one at the time you paste — are rectangular selections and not multiple stream selections?

I think I’m sure :)

Starting with

abcd
efgh
ijkl

qwer
tyui
opkl

I select the top block with Shift-Alt Down and Right arrows, Ctrl-c, select the bottom block upward with Shift-Alt Left and Up arrows. Status bar for both selections is Sel : 3x4 = 12

After Ctrl-V I have

abcd
efgh
ijkl

ijkl
efgh
abcd

I get the same result if the second selection is a zero width Sel : 3x0 at the left of the second block.

As far as thin selections, from the same starting set, I copy the first block, upward rectangular select the first letter of the second block and type x in to it.

abcd
efgh
ijkl

xwer
xyui
xpkl

Scintilla says this makes a thin selection, ~~but I think the new n++ code immediately converts it to a multi-selection~~, with the carets after the x, which shows as Sel 3 : 0 | 3, and the paste is in reverse order.

abcd
efgh
ijkl

xijklwer
xefghyui
xabcdpkl

~~I think the n++ code has some changes to auto switch from column to multi-edit for actions that don’t continue/extend a column selection.~~
SCI_GETSELECTIONMODE tells me the carets after the x were thin mode.

astewart77

@Coises said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

I’m thinking, at least, since rectangular selections are always treated as top-down regardless of how they are made, if they must convert to empty multiple selections on arrow keys, at least the multiple selection should be top-down, regardless of how the rectangular selection was made. But I suspect those who use multiple selections more than rectangular selections will disagree.

As a multi-edit user, I rarely move a bunch of carets together with up or down arrows. Odd things happen at the end of lines/file. The appearance of vertically aligned carets as a unit is misleading. Better to create a new zero-width selection at the target location.

I have a hotkey to rotate the main selection through a set of multi-edit carets for review and I see that it also rotates line by line through a rectangular selection, with order depending on selection direction. So it seems that Scintilla simply converts a rectangular selection “line-by-line” to multi-edit carets, in the same order. The main selection is the “last” caret . In the OP, the main caret was the top most after the upward copy and still top most after the down arrows.

Coises

@astewart77 said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

After Ctrl-V I have

abcd
efgh
ijkl

ijkl
efgh
abcd

And doing the same thing, I got:

abcd
efgh
ijkl

abcd
efgh
ijkl

I removed all plugins, just in case that was the cause. Debug info:

Notepad++ v8.6   (64-bit)
Build time : Nov 23 2023 - 16:58:44
Path : C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
Command Line : 
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : OFF
Cloud Config : OFF
OS Name : Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
OS Version : 22H2
OS Build : 19045.3693
Current ANSI codepage : 1252
Plugins : none

I don’t have a guess as to why your results are different.

As far as thin selections, from the same starting set, I copy the first block, upward rectangular select the first letter of the second block and type x in to it.

If I do that and paste, I get:

abcd
efgh
ijkl

xabcdwer
xefghyui
xijklpkl

If, instead of typing an x, I press the right arrow key, then I get:

abcd
efgh
ijkl

qijklwer
tefghyui
oabcdpkl

The right arrow converts to an empty multiple stream selection — that’s intentional new behavior in 8.6 — and then the selection direction matters, because it preserves the selection order that was used to make the rectangular selection.

astewart77

@Coises said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

I removed all plugins, just in case that was the cause. Debug info:

Notepad++ v8.6   (64-bit)
Build time : Nov 23 2023 - 16:58:44
Path : C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
Command Line : 
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : OFF
Cloud Config : OFF
OS Name : Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
OS Version : 22H2
OS Build : 19045.3693
Current ANSI codepage : 1252
Plugins : none

I don’t have a guess as to why your results are different.

OK. I tried a portable minimalist n++ and I see what you see.

My usual plugin load is:

Notepad++ v8.6   (32-bit)
Build time : Nov 29 2023 - 22:23:02
Path : C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
Command Line : 
Admin mode : ON
Local Conf mode : OFF
Cloud Config : OFF
OS Name : Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
OS Build : 7601.0
Current ANSI codepage : 1252
Plugins : 
    AnalysePlugin (1.14.54)
    ColumnsPlusPlus (1)
    DSpellCheck (1.5)
    ExtSettings (1.3.1)
    GotoLineCol (2.4.3)
    HTMLTag_unicode (1.4.1)
    JSMinNPP (1.2308)
    MarkdownViewerPlusPlus (0.8.2)
    mimeTools (2.9)
    NppConverter (4.5)
    NppEventExec (0.9)
    NppExec (0.8.7)
    NppExport (0.4)
    NppMenuSearch (0.9.6)
    NppToolBucket (1.10.6622.41336)
    NppUISpy (1.2)
    RandomValuesNppPlugin (0.2.1)
    SurroundSelection (1.4.1)
    _CustomizeToolbar (5.3)

I’ll narrow it down, but I kinda like it the way it is.

astewart77

@astewart77 said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

@Coises said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

I don’t have a guess as to why your results are different.

OK. I tried a portable minimalist n++ and I see what you see.

Well, not a plugin or a setting! The portable minimalist I used is an 8.6 release. I forgot that I updated my main n++ to a master on github from two weeks ago, entitled
Fix visual glichy on multi-paste and make shortcut commands more coherent

After I copied the .exe from that master to my portable dir, no plugins, default settings, the portable behaved as I have been seeing. The master still says 8.6 in the windows file properties, but the ordering of rectangular pasting is different from the 8.6 release.

Whether this is an upcoming 8.6.1 bug or a feature is probably a personal pref.

astewart77

@astewart77 said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

@astewart77 said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:
I updated my main n++ to a master on github from two weeks ago, entitled
Fix visual glichy on multi-paste and make shortcut commands more coherent

After I copied the .exe from that master to my portable dir, no plugins, default settings, the portable behaved as I have been seeing. The master still says 8.6 in the windows file properties, but the ordering of rectangular pasting is different from the 8.6 release.

More difference - with 8.6, after the paste there a single caret top left. With the change in the master commit, after the paste, there are zero width multi-carets on the right and status bar shows Sel : 3x0. A bug that was mentioned elsewhere - if you switch to another tab and back, the carets are on the left, full rectangular selection, status is Sel : 3x4.

Coises

@astewart77 said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

More difference - with 8.6, after the paste there a single caret top left. With the change in the master commit, after the paste, there are zero width multi-carets on the right and status bar shows Sel : 3x0. A bug that was mentioned elsewhere - if you switch to another tab and back, the carets are on the left, full rectangular selection, status is Sel : 3x4.

Ugh. This sounds like paste into rectangular selection is, in the updated build, being treated as paste into multiple selection.

I haven’t (yet) managed to identify what changed to cause this, but I’d guess that either Notepad++ is processing paste differently, or it took over from letting Scintilla process it natively and isn’t duplicating Scintilla’s process accurately.

Coises

@astewart77 said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

After I copied the .exe from that master to my portable dir, no plugins, default settings, the portable behaved as I have been seeing. The master still says 8.6 in the windows file properties, but the ordering of rectangular pasting is different from the 8.6 release.

I found out what happened.

In 8.6, your test does not show reversal. However, still in 8.6, if you do the same test except for using the Edit | Paste menu command instead of Ctrl+v, the text is pasted in reverse order.

In 8.6, Ctrl+v was associated with the Scintilla command SCI_PASTE. The menu command, however, is processed directly by Notepad++.

In the current master, Ctrl+x/c/v are mapped to the menu commands instead of the Scintilla commands. Menu cut and copy, as far as I can tell, do not behave differently than Scintilla cut and copy for rectangular selections in 8.6; it’s just menu paste.

The change happens in #0978b2e.

astewart77

@Coises said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

In the current master, Ctrl+x/c/v are mapped to the menu commands instead of the Scintilla commands.

So it’s a feature if you like having keyboard access to the menu paste method, but a bug if you don’t, because SCI_PASTE is no longer available for remapping back to Ctrl+v.

mkupper

@astewart77 said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

So it’s a feature if you like having keyboard access to the menu paste method, but a bug if you don’t, because SCI_PASTE is no longer available for remapping back to Ctrl+v.

Removing SCI_COPY, SCI_PASTE, etc. seems like it would create problems for people who already have macros that use those SCI codes. For example, this person’s macro uses 2178 which is SCI_COPY though in his case it’s also followed by 42002 IDM_EDIT_COPY

astewart77

@mkupper said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

@astewart77 said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

So it’s a feature if you like having keyboard access to the menu paste method, but a bug if you don’t, because SCI_PASTE is no longer available for remapping back to Ctrl+v.

Removing SCI_COPY, SCI_PASTE, etc. seems like it would create problems for people who already have macros that use those SCI codes.

SCI_PASTE still exists. I meant it’s just no longer listed in the Shortcut Mapper for easy remapping. I made an NppExec macro with SCI_PASTE and mapped that to Ctrl+v. That works.

Theo Pavloudis

Is this going to get fixed now?
I am facing the same issue with 8.6.
It’s really annoying…
No plugins at all.

Alan Kilborn

@Theo-Pavloudis said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

Is this going to get fixed now?
I am facing the same issue with 8.6.
It’s really annoying…

It sure seems like you should try the latest version as of this writing (8.6.4).

mkupper

@Theo-Pavloudis said in npp v8.6 reverses the order of lines on column copy/paste:

Is this going to get fixed now?
I am facing the same issue with 8.6.
It’s really annoying…
No plugins at all.

It is fixed in v8.6.4 but you need to disable Column Selection to Multi-Editing in the Preferences / Editing 2 tab. This setting, and the Enable Multi-Editing one in the same Preferences section were added as part of v8.6 and enabled by default. To restore the classic “normal” Notepad++ behavior people need to disable both settings. You only need to disable the Column Selection to Multi-Editing part if you are only interested in the order-of-lines issue reported in this forum thread.

Theo Pavloudis

@Alan-Kilborn @mkupper it’s still there in 8.6.8 either with Column Selection to Multi-Editing on or off.

First image is the original, second image is what happens when I paste it.
The order is reversed…