Topic: inserting a block to the left of an existing one? (1 of 6), Read 19 times
Conf: Basic editing, Block operations
From: Matt Graham-Melville
Date: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 08:44 AM

I'm a new user of VE. It is powerful, but I've yet to figure out some basic functions.

I'm used to Excel. In Excel, I would just select the cells that I want to insert and insert them where I wanted them, specifying that they should move displaced cells to the right. Unfortunately, Excel is a bit too wimpy to work with the big files that I now use (200k records, for example)

What I want to do is insert a block of text to the left of an existing block -- example:

original:
ABC = DEF
BCD = EFG
CDE = FGH

What I want to do:
DB.ABC = DEF
DB.BCD = EFG
DB.CDE = FGH

what actually happens:
ABC = DEF
BCD = EFG
CDE = FGH
DB.
DB.
DB.

Is there a simple method of inserting text to the right of existing text? I can drag out the macro language book and start building but if a method already exists, I'd rather use that.

Thank you.

 


Topic: Re: inserting a block to the left of an existing one? (2 of 6), Read 18 times
Conf: Basic editing, Block operations
From: Christian Ziemski
Date: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 09:26 AM

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 08:44:00 -0500, Matt Graham-Melville wrote:

>What I want to do is insert a block of text to the left of an
>existing block --
>example:
>
>original:
>ABC = DEF
>BCD = EFG
>CDE = FGH
>
>What I want to do:
>DB.ABC = DEF
>DB.BCD = EFG
>DB.CDE = FGH

Matt:

If your block to be inserted is in the Windows clipboard then you can
use VEDIT's menu entry {Edit, Paste columnar clipboard}
while the cursor is at the beginning of line "ABC = DEF"

If your block already is in one of VEDITs text registers use
{Block, Insert register, Insert reg as Column} instead.


Christian

 


Topic: Re: inserting a block to the left of an existing one? (3 of 6), Read 17 times
Conf: Basic editing, Block operations
From: Matt Graham-Melville
Date: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 01:19 PM

I was hoping to be able to paste an entire block of text. The shells in which I'm working make line-by-line pasting tedious. Possible, but not efficient.

Again, in Excel I would paste the entire group of cells and have the displaced cells move right. Is this possible in VE?

Thank you.

 


Topic: Re: inserting a block to the left of an existing one? (4 of 6), Read 16 times
Conf: Basic editing, Block operations
From: Christian Ziemski
Date: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 02:09 PM

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:19:00 -0500, Matt Graham-Melville wrote:

>I was hoping to be able to paste an entire block of text.

Your last example of
DB.
DB.
DB.
wasn't meant as an entire block of text??


>Again, in Excel I would paste the entire group of cells and
>have the displaced cells move right. Is this possible in VE?

In Vedit there are of course no cells, only characters.
So all basic operations are on character basis.

I understood your example this way:

original:

ABC = DEF
BCD = EFG
CDE = FGH
...

And a block copied from elsewhere:

Big-
New-
Txt-
...

Result after columnar pasting:

Big-ABC = DEF
New-BCD = EFG
Txt-CDE = FGH
...


And that is possible like described earlier.


Christian

PS: If we are still on different pathes, let me know ;-)

 


Topic: Re: inserting a block to the left of an existing one? (5 of 6), Read 16 times
Conf: Basic editing, Block operations
From: Ted Green
Date: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 02:40 PM

At 01:46 PM 11/1/2006, you wrote:
>From: "Matt Graham-Melville"
>
>I was hoping to be able to paste an entire block of text. The shells in which I'm working make line-by-line pasting tedious. Possible, but not efficient.
>
>Again, in Excel I would paste the entire group of cells and have the displaced cells move right. Is this possible in VE?

Sorry, I don't understand you.
Please experiment with the columnar pasting, as described in Christian's previous post. This should do what you want - move existing text to the right as it inserts a new columns of text.

Ted.

 


Topic: Re: inserting a block to the left of an existing o (6 of 6), Read 15 times
Conf: Basic editing, Block operations
From: Pauli Lindgren
Date: Thursday, November 02, 2006 11:47 AM

On 11/1/2006 1:19:54 PM, Matt Graham-Melville wrote:
>I was hoping to be able to
>paste an entire block of text.
>The shells in which I'm
>working make line-by-line
>pasting tedious. Possible, but
>not efficient.
>
>Again, in Excel I would paste
>the entire group of cells and
>have the displaced cells move
>right. Is this possible in VE?

You need to use columnar blocks.
To define a columnar block with keyboard:
1. Move cursor to upper left corner of the area you want to copy.
2. Press Alt-I
3. Move cursor to lower right corner (the block is painted as you move the cursor).
4. Press Alt-I again.

Now you can move cursor to the destination location. Then, to copy block, press Ctrl-F9. Or to move block, press Alt-F9.

Or you can copy the block to a text register (Block -> Copy to register) and paste it from there.

With mouse:
1. To define columnar block, paint the area while holding down Alt key.
2. To copy block, move cursor to the destination, hold down Ctrl-key and click left mouse button.
Or, to move block, hold down Alt-key while clicking.

--
Pauli