Re: Shortcut to select cell?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg38970] Re: [mg38945] Shortcut to select cell?
- From: John Fultz <jfultz at wolfram.com>
- Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 08:03:27 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
> All: > > I'm striving to stay away from the mouse, using keyboard shortcuts > instead, so that I can move more quickly. > > Here's one that's irritating me (on windows): > > You are in the midst of editing in a cell. You decide you want to > change the style of the cell (e.g. from text to small text). There are > the Alt- shortcuts, but those only seem to work when the cell itself is > selected. And so, the question: What keystrokes will select a cell > itself, from someplace within the cell? > > Thank you. Control-period expands the current selection. If you have the entire contents of a cell selected, the selection is expanded to be the cell bracket. So, typically, you would have to press Control-period two to four times (but if your selection is in a deeply nested expression, perhaps more) to select the cell bracket. A related mouse trick (I know you didn't ask, but since I'm on the soapbox, I thought I'd mention it) can duplicate this keystroke with the mouse. If you double-click on some text, that's the same as having the selection there and pressing Control-period once. Triple- clicking is like pressing control-period twice. And so on (except that you cannot select the cell bracket using the mouse via this means). This is particularly useful in input/output cells where the selection can be expanded by knowledge of the expression structure. This means that you can, for example, easily select a whole string, or the entire contents of a set of square brackets by either triple-clicking inside the string/square brackets or by using Control-period twice when inside the string/square brackets. Sincerely, John Fultz jfultz at wolfram.com User Interface Group Wolfram Research, Inc.