Ability to select/edit *partial* text across multiple blocks/paragraphs

I want to be able to select and edit text that partially spans two or more blocks.

In the example below, I’d like to be able to select the text from “HERE” to “THERE”. Using either mouse or keyboard (SHIFT+DOWN/UP).

If I try doing it currently, as soon as the selection spans more than one block, all the involved blocks are fully selected.

I’d also expect (most) edit operations to work as much as possible as one would expect from a traditional text editor (whenever possible/desirable, of course).

For example, maybe hitting ENTER should delete the partial text from both blocks accordingly (and place cursor in a new block between the existing blocks). Hitting DEL could delete the selected text, and merge the bottom block with the top one (maybe SHIFT+DEL could keep the blocks and just delete the text).

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It’s now possible in Notion.so and the function is more than useful, so I hope to see it one day in Anytype.

multiselect_v2.0

Click & drag to select, cut, copy & paste partial text across paragraphs, bullet lists, callouts & more without having to select each block in its entirety.

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Good to know! Thanks for sharing this. Hopefully it’s a sign this is indeed a desirable feature for users.

As much as I’m excited about all the advanced features in Anytype, the most important thing for me will always be the writing/editing (an data entry) process. Since this is what I’ll be doing most of the time, it needs to be as quick and efficient as possible.

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Agreed! The reason I think it took so long for Notion to implement this is that it’s a bit challenging to determine when “block behavior” or “text behavior” should take priority. So I believe you might be interested in this suggestion I had, which would be one way to achieve this selection behavior, and (in my view) overall better writing experience, without the devs having to try to guess/intuit user intent.

+1, selecting text across blocks is really useful, not a priority for me but I’d love to see it on the roadmap.

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This request raises a big questions on the nature of block based editors and how people interact with such software. But we definitely will ponder on this great riddle.

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I think most block-based editors allow this.

The smallest unit is still the single character after all…

WHAT DO YOU RECOMMEND

Give the ability to copy text from all blocks at the same time.

HOW COULD IT BE DONE

Now copying text to Android is possible only within one block, or by selecting entire blocks, which is not convenient. I propose to make the selection function not restricted to blocks.

REAL WORLD USE CASES

For example, you need to copy part of the text of your note quickly. You simply select the desired fragment and press copy. This is a classic feature of any editor.

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Copied a lot of text from different sources into Anytype to later copy everything at once but now I’m ending up selecting a couple of hundred blocks one by one : D Definitely need this one here!

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+1 to this!

I end up just using backspace to delete portions of text between blocks. :')

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