What's happened with text selection in the latest version of Pages (5.2)? When you select whole words using the right arrow key + Shift + Cmd and then try to deselect a character using the left arrow key + Shift, the selection changes to the character before and the character after the initial cursor position. Other unexpected selection results are occurring too.
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9)
You are absolutely right, and we are a lot of people that has noticed this problem.
It really drives me nuts that Apple would change such a fundamental mechanism that has been working perfectly for decades. And it's been one of those "usability hallmarks" that has put the Mac in a class by itself – especially compared to Windows erratic cursor jumps.
Having a uniform text behavior across the system is of course imperative. I hope Apple fixes this iWork issue real soon.
If you don't have the Pages for Mac 5.0: Keyboard Shortcuts, it may prove useful in understanding keyboard alternatives to selection issues. This does not preclude the possibility of bugs in Pages v5.2 either.
Well, you would expect it, but Apple may be using a modified Library that differs from one used by other OS X applications that you mention.
I have learned not to assume anything about Pages v5+.
If you get overly frustrated with v5, and decide to revert to Pages ’09 v4.3, then here is:
@fruhulda
Your comments are really not helping at all. Of course there are other ways of selecting the text, but that is totally beside the point.
Thanks for the reference! The changes/bugs I'm noticing were introduced in version 5.2, at least I don't remember seeing them before. You should expect text selection in Pages to work the same way as in, say, Mail or TextEdit, which is no longer the case.
Another selection issue. Using this passage as an example: "Another selection issue"; if you place the cursor immediately before "issue", press Shift+Alt+left arrow key to select the word "selection" and then expand the selction to include the space before "selection", the "i" of "issue" is selected also.
@fruhulda
The topic of this discussion clearly is "What's happened with text selection?"
Also, its quite obvious to anyone that the skill level of von Bordwehr far surpasses your replies. Of course there are other ways of selecting text, but that is totally outside this discussion. I know you meen well, so let's just stop this here and let us more senior guys take over.
@von Bordwehr
I can conclude that this problem must indeed be a bug (not a feature), because some text selection results cannot be of usage to anyone. Unfortuantely it affects all programs in the entire iWork suite, but at least seems to be contained in there. I therefore rule out the likelyhood of a Mavericks bug.
Take for ex a related situation to the one you describe above: "Another selection issue", Cursor before the word "selection", then Shift+Alt + righ arrow followed by Shift+left arrow. The result doesn't even include the word "selection" anymore.
This odd behavior seems to affect most text selection involving Shift+Alt+arrow keys followed by Shift+arrow keys (especially if the arrow keys are opposite). If combined also with the Command key the problem will be even greater.
I would guess it's the index of right-selection border that the iWork apps calculate wrong when the Alt key is used. In most cases it is simply mixed up with the index of the left-selection border.
I can also answer your question above (regarding what's happened) with the positive news that Apple's iWork team is indeed aware of this bug and is even working to fix it right now. First-hand info
😉
You are not the one to dictate what people can post in this forum. Firstly if someone doesn't like a posting just ignore it instead of pointing out this or that. We certainly can't answer questions why something behaves in a certain way and if an alternative suggestion is made don't be negative about it being posted.
Yes, it deffinitely appears to be a bug. No idea if it's of any use, but I've reported it on the feedback page. Let's hope they get it sorted out some time soon.
I can confirm the behavior but you can select word by using Shift + arrow key. Just takes a little longer.
I would just doubleclick on the word and then add/delete character with arrow key + Shift.
You seem new to the forum. We are all users here and can not change the applications but try to find other ways to use them.
Text selection
