Sublime Forum

Column text copy...a very long one

#1

hey Sublime experts,
I need to copy a huge huge text column, spreading across multiple pages…is there easy way I can do this? Dragging with mouse with middle button pressed is hell slow…I wish page down key would work when mouse middle key is pressed. But it doesn’t.
Any ways, I can copy such column data?

If I compare with Notepad++, there is faster way (if not best one). As long as I have kept “Ctrl+Alt” down, I am into column mode. I can press “PageDown” and go to end of file very fast…column selection is still on. I can copy text via this way faster.

Ideal would be keyboard shortcuts for Column_Selec_Start, and Column_Select_End. Based on position of cursor during these events, a column can be marked and copied.
thanks and regards
-mobilepgk

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#2

without seeing an example, it’s a little tricky to know what to suggest, but I assume you have fixed sized columns, so you could just use a simple regex search:

^.{20}\K.{30}

i.e. skip 20 characters, select 30 characters

you could also try https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Column%20Select

this could potentially be a useful addition to Packages/Default/mark.py (i.e. the Edit menu -> Mark functionality), whereby one would place a mark on the start line and column, move the selection to the desired end line and column and then choose a new “Column Select to Mark” function - you may want to consider logging it as a feature request

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