Re: Next release - Paste Overlay

"WDSCI-L" <wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on 06/18/2015 08:35:53 AM:

----- Message from Greg Wilburn <gwilburn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
on Wed, 17 Jun 2015 19:18:31 +0000 -----

To:

"'Rational Developer for IBM i / Websphere Development Studio Client
for System i & iSeries'" <wdsci-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

Subject:

Re: [WDSCI-L] Next release - Paste Overlay

I actually need to paste-overlay a block of text. This works when
it's copied from within the LPEX editor using ALT-R, but will not
work from a text editor.

I transposed my column headers into a single column in Excel, pasted
that into Notepad++. Tried to copy and paste-overlay in the source
editor (ALT-Z)... could not get that to work

So I pasted with CTRL-V at the bottom of my source, pressed CTRL-F5
to clear the messages, copied it again with ALT-R and paste-overlay
with ALT-Z. Whew! Surely there's a better way.

Yea, Alt+Z is designed to copy the marked block within LPEX to the current
position and there won't be a marked block since your source is MS-Excel
or Notepad++. The best I can suggest would be to get the desired text into
the clipboard by whatever means works for you. (Ctrl+C from MS-Excel
should work if it's all in a single column.)

Then highlight the target block in LPEX and press Ctrl+V to paste in your
text. This will overlay whatever you've highlighted--albeit in a single
stream. You may have to add or remove a few spaces after the pasted data
if you don't select the exact size to be overlaid. I believe it also
requires your LPEX Block preferences to be set to 'stream'. I guess you
could try 'rectangle' and see what kind of results you would get.

Not a perfect solution, but the best available that I can think of at this
time. I've only done this in my code to paste in comment data thus helping
document what the code is doing. I haven't seen what the benefit of
overlaying text from a spreadsheet, etc. would be. In my mind, insert the
new data and format what you need around it. But I'm sure it fits your
needs better to simply overlay the text you're bringing in.

If you can clearly state your case, it's a candidate for an RFE. But
there's never a guarantee that an RFE will become part of the product.
I've had RFE's marked as 'Uncommitted Candidates for years. IBM agrees it
would be useful, but they've got to pick and choose what they implement
with the resources available.