Tip 2: Exciting SSMS Features Derived from Visual Studio

Tip 1: Clipboard Ring – Copy Paste rediscovered
Tip 2: Box Selection – Select and Edit text easily

Have you ever imagined selecting a particular portion of the text or rectangular region of the text from multiple rows like the figure -1? Box selection? Why do I need that?

Oh! Believe me, many times while executing queries for various tests, you’ll need it.

Is this really possible?

Sad, with traditional horizontal selection system, you can’t do that.

If you are known to Visual Studio 2010 (release: 12 April 2010) or newer environment, probably you already know this. Since Eclipse 3.5 (release: 24 June 2009), this facility is there. If you have SQL Server 2014 (not sure about SQL Server 2012), you have the power to do columnar selection also known as box selection.

You can do it either way:

• Holding down the ALT key and dragging mouse to select text as we do for normal selection
• Using keyboard shortcuts ALT + SHIFT + ARROW KEYS

You can do the following actions through Box Selection:

• Copy: Copy rectangular region/box of text
• Text Insertion: Select the box and start typing to replace the selection with typed in new text on every selected line.
• Paste:
  • Single Copy – Box Paste: On box selection pasting some text will be applied to every line
  • Box Copy – Box Paste: Paste contents of one box selection to another box selection
  • Box Copy – Single Paste: Little weird though. Check what is happening !
• Zero-Length boxes: Vertical selection of zero characters wide to create a multi-line insertion point for new or copied text. To do this, just hold down the ALT key and keep pressing down/up key till the length you want. This will create a multi-line insertion point.

Hopefully, you liked this tip. Please stay tuned to learn few more exciting tips in this series. I would love to hear from you. Thanks for reading. :)