Hello KM community,
How would one create a macro to select a continuous text string excluding the beginning and ending white spaces?
Example: given the following text
abc [#$/fox(/jumps/over)the/lazy/dog/123:-/93<82}=][\] 123
If mouse cursor is anywhere inside the text string, activating the macro would automatically select the full text string.
[#$/fox(/jumps/over)the/lazy/dog/123:-/93<82}=][\]
Thanks,
Chris
If mouse cursor is anywhere inside the text string
What application (editor) is that ?
( These things are not really application-independent – the shortest answer to your question might be: by using a scriptable editor)
Application is BBEdit.
Good – there are plenty of BBEdit-scripters here, I think.
Newbie here. I was able to get this to work. But I'm sure there is a better and more elegant way of doing this.
Others will be more familiar with the BBEdit scripting interface, but I think you should also be able to do this kind of thing:
Selection extended to first space to left and right.kmmacros (3.2 KB)
on extendToSpace(doc, isBackwards)
using terms from application "BBEdit"
tell doc to find "\\s" options ¬
{search mode:grep, extend selection:true, backwards:isBackwards} ¬
with selecting match
end using terms from
end extendToSpace
on run
tell application "BBEdit"
set docs to text documents
if 0 < (count of docs) then
set doc to front text document
if found of (my extendToSpace(doc, true)) then
if found of (my extendToSpace(doc, false)) then
tell text of doc
tell selection
set iStart to its characterOffset
set iEnd to iStart + ((its length) - 2)
end tell
select (characters iStart thru iEnd)
end tell
{iStart, iEnd}
else
"No space or newline found to right"
end if
else
"No space or newline found to left"
end if
else
"No document open in BBEdit"
end if
end tell
end run
ComplexPoint,
Many many thanks for your help! Your macro with AppleScript works beautifully and very fast. Thank you so much again, really appreciate it. 
Chris