Click, drag and drop to move text

[Jeremy Bohn]

When I double-click on a word in a text box, it's selected. Keeping the mouse held down, if I drag through the text, more words are selected.

If I triple-click to select the whole line of text and try to perform the above, and entirely different thing happens. When I drag with the mouse held down, instead I get a text insertion cursor and the selected text is moved to where I let the mouse go.

I find this behaviour very annoying and prone to accidentally moving text. The ability to turn this off would be great (like InDesign). Then have the triple-click behaviour mimic the double-click-select behaviour.

[walt.farrell]

For me, on Windows, there is an important difference between the double-click and the triple-click scenarios.

Double-click acts as you say.

But for triple-click, the line is not selected until the mouse button is released. That it is, it is triple-click, release the mouse button, and then the line is selected. At that point, depressing the mouse button again puts you into the variant of double-click that you did not mention: if you double-click, and release the mouse button, when you drag you get the text-movement cursor.

The difference is that with triple-click you must release the mouse (forcing you into the movement scenario), but with double-click you have the option of keeping it pressed (select more mode) or releasing it (movement mode).

[Jeremy Bohn]

On Mac, the triple click is the same as you mentioned. You have to triple click and let go.

Any other standard Mac app selects the whole paragraph when you triple click, with no letting go necessary. Then you can drag and select by paragraphs. Affinity needs to follow these standards.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Bohn said:

Any other standard Mac app selects the whole paragraph when you triple click, with no letting go necessary.

Ah. In Affinity, you quadruple-click to select a paragraph. (At least, on Windows.)

[Finrach]

Is there an off button for 'Drag and Drop' text? I'd love to be able to disable this feature. 

A trick I miss from Quark is selecting large blocks of text by direction - this is very useful when you want to delete all the text from above or below a certain point. 

To do this you click and swipe up to make a short selection then cmd-a to select all, now hold the shift key while you click and everything below the cursor stays selected as you move. 

Likewise if you click and swipe down to make a short selection then cmd-a, then hold the shift key while you click and everything above the cursor stays selected as you move.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, Finrach said:

Is there an off button for 'Drag and Drop' text? I'd love to be able to disable this feature. 

A trick I miss from Quark is selecting large blocks of text by direction - this is very useful when you want to delete all the text from above or below a certain point. 

To do this you click and swipe up to make a short selection then cmd-a to select all, now hold the shift key while you click and everything below the cursor stays selected as you move. 

Likewise if you click and swipe down to make a short selection then cmd-a, then hold the shift key while you click and everything above the cursor stays selected as you move.

There's no way to change the processing. However, the following should work for you in Affinity if (as I think you described) you want everything before the cursor or everything after the cursor. Click to set the text cursor. Then Ctrl+Shift+Home to select all the text before it (within the same set of linked text frames (story)), or Ctrl+Shift+End to select all the text after it (again, within the same story). Would probably work the same on a Mac using Cmd rather than Ctrl.

[Finrach]

Thanks Walt, that's an excellent alternative. Not quite as flexible as dragging the cursor which allows you to add or subtract as you drag but at least a quick way to select everything above or below. Shame no off preference for drag and drop. I'm enjoying AP but I'm missing some Quark gems - like holding ctrl will switch the cursor temporarily to a magnifying glass so you can swipe over an area to zoom, let go ctrl and you're back to the tool you were using. And alt for the 'mover handler' and not space bar. I've got mouse zooming with the scroll wheel and clicking the wheel to hold a mover handler, but I have to move my left hand off the keyboard to do that (pen in right hand).

[Kristi Lyons]

It's actually very easy!  First draw out your target text frame, so your text has someplace to go. 

Select your text with the Text Frame tool. Then let up on the mouse button. (Your text should remain highlighted.) Then, still with Text Frame tool, click within your highlighted text and hold the mouse button down. Drag the mouse to where you want the text to be. It will look as though nothing is happening--except that your cursor will be a bold red X.  Once you get into your text frame, a blue cursor bar appears in the upper left. Let go of the mouse button, and the text will then populate your frame.  Voila.