Make a selection with just find

[capnhud]

I know that if I do a findall then all occurrences of what I am looking for will become a selection, but I notice that just using find does not make a selection is this intended behavior?

[edanm]

I'm not sure. I'd love for there to be a way to perform a find an selectively add the word to the "selections", but I don't think there is such an option yet.

However, this might help you: try selecting the phrase you want, then hitting ctrl+d (select word).
What ctrl+d does is select the current word, but after that, it will select that next word, then the next, all the while making them selected as well. It's a quick and easy way to make multiple selections.
The best part is, you can select more than a word, then hit ctrl+d, and it will select that (this can include several lines, if you want).

[capnhud]

maybe something is wrong with the beta that I am using but when I do a find i see what appears to be a highlight around it but I can not do anything to it unless I take my mouse and actually put the cursor before it which can be a slow process when you are doing the same thing over and over and over. I am not saying that i am looking for a particular group of the same words but rather one word but from different groups of text. For example I have a text paragraph with the word SOMETHING

1. Ctrl+F and it finds it (good)
2. I want to maybe add a return line to it. (bad I cannot do anything to the word unless I put the cursor in front of it.)
3. added a return to the word so that it is on its own line.
4. Repeat with another word and the process begins all over again. (painstakingly slow)

[edanm]

When you ctrl+f to look for a word, you can hit "escape" to leave the cursor at that word (instead of using the mouse).
Is that what you were looking for?

[capnhud]

When I push escape the cursor does not even begin to be close to word that had it find so I have to resort to the mouse to select it.

[edanm]

That's odd. On my installation (the latest beta), hitting ctrl+f, typing in "SOMETHING", then hitting escape will leave the chosen word selected.

Which version of Sublime are you using? And which plugins?

[capnhud]

I am using the lastest beta and the packages included are

zen coding
choose any command
poweruser
remove whitespace
packagedownloader

[capnhud]

Which buttons do you have enabled on the find toolbar if you don't mind me asking.

I have regular expression and highlight depressed which now will place the cursor at the end or the find query instead of at the beginning. Getting closer to accomplishing what you say is possible.

[capnhud]

I see in order to get the cursor to the begin of the selection I must push the arrow to the beginning and it works. I was expecting the cursor to automatically begin at the beginning of the single selection.

[edanm]

Ah I see.
You're right: after the "find" operation, the "found" word is selected. You can then just press the left arrow and you'll get the cursor where you want it.