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The Bat! - annoying word wrap

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superboyac:
From the help:
If you use Persistent blocks text remains selected until you select another, hide the selection or delete the selected text. Otherwise, the selection will be automatically hidden when you move the cursor to another position, type some text, or insert some text from the Clipboard
--- End quote ---

I don't understand this.

allen:
As for "hide" as mentioned in the help, I can only assume that by hide they mean to remove it from focus -- possibly by scrolling far enough in the document where it can't be seen -- but is still selected and manipulatable.  I don't know of anyway to, in literal English, hide a persistent selection.

The easiest way to explain it . . . would be this, I hope -- you're accustomed to non-persistent blocks. By blocks, I mean a "block" of select text.  In non-persistent blocks, moving the cursor unselects text. Entering a keystroke will overwrite the text (delete it) altogether.

With persistent blocks, however, this behavior changes -- the blocks of selected text literally persist.  When you move the cursor, the block of text will remain selected/highlighted unless you select/highlight another block of text.  Further more, keystrokes will apply normally where the cusor is, without interupting, unselecting or overwriting the selection.  Pressing ctrl+delete is the means, generally, for deleting a persistent block.

For me, personally, the benefits of persistent blocks are--
* moving the cursor to look around at other parts of the body of text will -not- cause your selection to be lost
* hitting a key will not accidentally delete the text
* Select now, use later.  Some times I know what I want to select, but am not sure what I want to do with it precisely -- and if I simply cut it to the clipboard, there's a good chance I'll forget about it :P
* In editors that support it (EditPadPro for example), you can select a block, move your cursor to a different location and duplicate or move that block of text to the cursor's location.  Normally this would require more steps -- copy/cut, find location, paste as opposed to simply hitting ctrl+d or ctrl+m to duplicate/move the block.

It's a somewhat subtle difference, but one I find myself unable to live without these days :)

Abridged, bottom-line version: Persistent selections are not unselected or overwritten by a keystroke like normal selections.  Instead, they remain until you move, delete or unselect them (by selecting something else).

superboyac:
I get it now!  Thanks allen for that explanation, I just couldn't understand what it meant.  It's crystal clear.  I just tried using it, but I don't think it's for me.  One thing I can't deal with is I can't delete blocks of text at a time.  I have to delete one character at a time, or use the "cut" command.  Is there no other way?

allen:
Absolutely -- this mode was meant to be productive, not counter productive.  It protects your blocks of text from movement and unintentional overright, bt you can delete a block --- ctrl+delete. :)

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