In I think pretty much any Microsoft product, you can select a block of text by double clicking the first word, holding down shift, then double clicking the last word. Likewise, if you click somewhere within the first word and drag to somewhere within the last word, all of the first and last word will be selected. This used to drive me nuts, but I’ve become accustomed to it, and now I hate it when a product makes me click at EXACTLY the beginning or end of a word to add the entire word to a selected block.
But I’ve started using Firefox, and Firefox uses the more conventional “select what you select” rather than “select what we think you meant to select.” Again, I can understand why they went with the first method, but I’m accustomed to the second. Is there an extension I can download or tweak I can make to change to the “you know what I mean” method?
Not really, because I want it to work in the way that I’m used to using selection (and the way it works in Word), not in a way CLOSE to what I’m used to
The fundamental problem is you’re confusing the normal operating system services (the human interface as defined my Microsoft) and something extra that ignores the human interface guidelines and adds extra functionality. Whether one is right or wrong is moot; the expected functionality is the point.
As that goes, FireFox does the right thing. You’ll notice that in Word et al, the functionality that you like – while pre-clicked – are positive affirmations from the norm. That is, the expectation is that an option check box in the unchecked state is “normal,” and that the functionality that you’re used to is beyond the norm. Just another way to say that Word et al is exceeding the Windows specification.
On the human interface side – even though it’s not your preference – the FireFox way is more intuitive: you select what you select; no more, no less. Double-clicking and selecting is an “advanced” feature and intuity doesn’t matter. Being an advanced feature indicates you must know (or trip upon) its existence in the first place.
Sorry to go beyond the scope of your OP. I don’t have a tweak I can offer, but I’m just trying to explain why it is the way it is. Don’t forget, though, that open source projects ARE always looking for developers, so feel free to add such as tweak! I don’t mean that sarcasticly, either; I’m trying to genuinely encourage you.
I absolutely agree with you. If I were starting to use a computer for the first time right now, I’d prefer the Firefox way of doing things… and that’s exactly what I thought when I first started using Microsoft products, “Why do they keep selecting more than I tell them to select???”
The problem is, I’ve used these products a LOT, and now I’m used to it. Being both a forum junky and someone who deals with the internet a lot on the job, I often want to select text from a web page to quote or paste into a chat or send in an email or whatever… and Firefox does it the way that I’m not used to (even though it’s the more correct way to do it).
Anyhoo, I’d like to figure it out and submit an extension or whatever, but I think that’s beyond me right now. Perhaps after I get a few of the dozen or so side projects I’m working on right now off my plate I’ll look into it more
Oh well, I found some other interesting extensions while digging, so it wasn’t a total loss
Be sure to get the Copy as Plain Text extension. It is great for posting webpage snippets into Word, you leave behind all the crap that Word tries to mimic.
You can turn off Word’s auto-full-word select to get it to behave the way it should.
Yup, that’s one of the ones I found while looking for something to help me here. I also got the triple-click-to-select-a-paragraph extension.
That’s not a bad idea, actually; sure, I’d have to get used to it… but it’s better than having two different systems of selecting at the same time. Done… we’ll see how it goes
