Where do I configure the default text selection behavior in Windows?

Question

(eg. mouse click selects entire word vs. mouse click inserts an active cursor)

I find the mouse click behavior of Windows XP and Windows 7 annoying and intrusive. I don't remember Windows NT being quite this bad, or MacOS 7 - 10 which I used in the nineties.

When I'm using a browser and I click on a text field - for example, the address bar, or a search box - the first thing which happens is the entire field is selected.Subsequent clicks seem to select parts of words, often deciding arbitrarily to exclude or include adjacent punctuation. The same in Excel and other apps, and when trying to rename files, so I'm assuming this behavior comes from a system-wide text handling routine.

I frequently want to edit text, cut out or replace odd parts of the insides of words or chunks of sentences, and often find that to get a simple cursor to insert I have to click the mouse up to 4 times in succession. I've had to do a lot of this recently and it has been driving me insane.

Is there a place at the system level where this can be configured?

In a perfect world, I'd like a single click on a new text area to insert a cursor point, and a rapid double click to select the entire area. Words or text within the area could be selected by inserting a cursor, holding down the mouse button and dragging to the exact point where I want the selection to end - even if that's in the middle of a word. No, I don't need or want Windows to "smart select" a word or sentence for me. I've looked in the Mouse and Accessibility Options control panels (Windows XP). Haven't found anything even close.

Solution 1

Here's workaround that I found online:

When you insert the cursor in the middle of a word and start dragging, and the whole word gets highlighted, backtrack the cursor a little then resume dragging in the desired direction. The rest of the word will be 'released' and you will only select the text from the intended point.

Solution 2

The answer is no, Windows does not provide a method of controlling the mouse text selection. Individual apps are allowed to do different things.

Things to remember are the ctrl/shift + left/right combinations can be handy and easier to select the text you want. So I can click in URL for this page, press ctrl+left/right to jump through the url, then hold shift as well to start selecting bits.

Comments

[Moab]

I agree, it is a bit erratic when trying to select, you never know what the OS is going to do depending on what program or document you are selecting text in. Just like this text box, first click gets the cursor, second selects the word I am over, third selects all text, but I cannot count on this behavior in all programs or documents. I have also noticed in W7 when single left clicking on something it does not always detect the first click, it takes a second click before Windows responds, again it is erratic, does not always do it but does most of the time, yes it does it on all my W7 systems

[rusty]

I don't think there's a system-wide setting for this behavior. I think it depends on the GUI framework a particular program uses and whether that framework obeys the Windows UI guidelines.

[harrymc]

This isn't a perfect world, especially Windows.

[Warnaud]

It's doing that also outside of windows (Word :@ ... such a pain to select since it takes what it wants ...) and on different OS too. I also prefer the concept of putting the cursor where you click and maybe select something bigger when double clicking. Anyway I would like to see a solution for this too

[henry700]

I believe that Office behavior in this respect is different than the basic system behavior. I notice this all the time with Wordpad as well. Open a plain text file in Wordpad and Notepad and you will see different selection & cursor behavior.

[DavidMichaelangelo]

I see no one has provided a true solution yet . . . is it just not possible? I am having the same problem with annoying auto-selection. For those of us with no mouse accuracy, I suppose this is useful. To everyone else it hurts productivity. How do we get the old cursor behaviour back? It seems to be something that was implemented for Windows 7

[Tamara Wijsman]

Where did you found that? Attribution might be required by the orginal source.

[jonsca]

Could you explain where to find the "clicklock" setting?

[Dave]

I think he/she means: Open Control Panel, click on Mouse. In here, you can change the mouse settings (sensitivity, double click settings and I guess the 'clicklock' too etc).