I was surprised that their implementation has the selection being released when you reposition the text cursor by clicking with the mouse.
I had no idea. Not a big fan of the mouse
(First thing I did when I installed Boxer was hide the toolbar)
I really appreciate your time in this thread. For the first time in several years, I am considering dropping a few dollars on a [different] text editor--of course a bit more time spent with the trial period will make it easier to decide whether the value of this editor versus my [surely easy to deduce] primary editor is justified given the price point. While not an unfair price, per se, it is not a negligible one either.
That said--portability/registry independence is something that is becoming extremely popular these days--sooner or later, I'm sure you'll get pressured into that. (Though you've more or less already implied sooner.) My request for persistent selections (or persistent blocks) is certainly a less common one--if not altogether uncommon--but I think some experience with them might give you an appreciation for them; even if you are not wholly converted yourself. I know for certain of two text editors that use them--and to greater effect than The Bat!
VEDIT and
Editpad Pro. In both cases, the ability to copy and move the block/selection to the cursor are made available. When creating somewhat redundant but not identical code, duplicating the selection is a real time saver. For example a list of links that differ from one another only by a number or character or two--select the redundant text, duplicate it--the new copy is highlighted now; you edit it, perhaps incrementing, then duplicate that one. Easy to remember what the last one you did was--it's copied over.
I can see where you're coming from with potential difficulty in such an implementation, though. The fact that you're at least looking at it gives me at least a little hope. As seemingly subtle a feature it is, it's a (perhaps irrationally) huge thing for me.
All that out of the way, just a few more comments--
* Probably from spending so much time with Opera, I personally expect a new blank file to open when I double click the empty desktop
*
Soft wrapping: is it possible to wrap text on screen without it hard-wrapping the text? The spelling and auto-complete features make this a great environment to compose things like this--but I don't want to wrap text I'm going to be dropping into a forum--but don't particularly enjoy reading through these long lines either. Wrap -> Format -> Unformat--seems to add a lot of steps. (Granted this is a moot point 99% of the time when one is programming) (I see you get this a bit
*
I love the custom file->open box--it's a tremendous "selling point" for me, particularly the auto-complete aspect. What I'm curious about is--can you multi-select from the command line (other than wild cards). What I'd hoped to see, I guess-- is, I autocomplete file1.txt -- put in a semi-colon and it lets me auto-complete another, and another, etc. -- like "file.txt";"file2.txt";"file3... --etc., after the semi-colon, a new file name can be auto-completed. Already got it covered, I see
