Word Selection and Line Breaks

TextEdit's definition of a word has been extended. Prior to this version,

TextEdit used its own FindWord procedure to determine word selection and

line breaks. It now relies on the Script Manager's FindWord procedure for

word selection on all systems and also relies on the Script Manager's

FindWord and StyledLineBreak routines for line breaking on systems

with more than one script system installed.

The way TextEdit uses FindWord to calculate word breaks has a significant

impact on word selection. For example, on a Roman-only system that is

localized for the United States, parentheses and other punctuation marks are

no longer included as part of a word selection. However, this behavior may

vary on other localized versions of a Roman system due to the localizability of

the Script Manager's FindWord procedure. Furthermore, when a user

double-clicks a series of spaces, that series of spaces is selected as a word.

(Prior to this version of TextEdit, single spaces were selected as a word.)

This figure illustrates how double-clicking the word Apple selects only the

word Apple, and not the enclosing parentheses. In the figure, the arrows point

to the word breaks.

Word breaks for word selection

For backward compatibility, system software with only the Roman Script

System installed still breaks lines at spaces. On systems with another script

system installed, TextEdit calls the Script Manager's FindWord and

StyledLineBreak routines for line breaking. Lines then break correctly

when a hyphenated word is at the end of a line, as shown in the following figure.

This change is noticeable if you compare a line break on a computer using

system software with only the Roman Script System installed to the same line

on a computer with more than one script system installed.

A line break with multiple scripts installed