Selecting a line of text

[Terry Michaels]

I am disabled and old, and I am not a great programmer.

Please help me remember how to select a line of text in a field.

I am doing something wrong.

I often depend on copying old scripts and apparently I no longer have that one.

[Bill Bowling]

Terry,

I spent a a minute using the ChatGPT machine. I haven’t tested but the syntax appears correct.

Here are a few simple examples you can pass along.

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Select a specific line

select line 3 of fld "MyField"

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Find text, then select that line

put lineOffset("Smith", fld "MyField") into tLine
if tLine > 0 then
  select line tLine of fld "MyField"
end if

---

Using a variable

put "Smith" into ss1
put lineOffset(ss1, fld "MyField") into tLine
if tLine > 0 then
  select line tLine of fld "MyField"
end if

---

Select a word (by position)

select word 2 of fld "MyField"

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Select a character range

select char 1 to 10 of fld "MyField"

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Field properties that matter

These can affect whether selection works as expected:

set the lockText of fld "MyField" to true (list field)

• lockText = true → user cannot edit text
• Selection still works, but field behaves more like read-only

set the dontWrap of fld "MyField" to true

• Prevents line wrapping (important when using line numbers)

set the autoSelect of fld "MyField" to true

• Clicking selects entire lines (useful for list-style fields)

set the multipleLines of fld "MyField" to true

• Required if you want multiple lines at all

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Common gotchas

• Always check result of lineOffset or wordOffset (0 = not found)
• Avoid nesting expressions inside select
• Wrapping can change what counts as a “line”
• Field must be visible and not empty

- Bill

[Terry Michaels]

Solved, thank you, Bill!