Console Text Selection Via the Keyboard

I was hanging out with some Pluralsight guys last weekend. Dan Sullivan was talking about SQL Service Broker, so I was already paying close attention, but then he did something that made me sit straight up my seat…he selected text in a console window using only the keyboard!

 

I've said it many times before: I'm a keyboard kind of guy. So it has always bugged me when I have had to take my hands off the keyboard to select text in a console window. Well, now I don't have to any more. Maybe I'm the last guy to figure this out, but apparently when you go into mark mode in a console window, you can use the arrow keys to move the selection point, and shift-arrows to extend the selection. Way cool!

 

Just to summarize, here's how I'd select some text in a console window, using only the keyboard:

 

Alt-Space, e, k  [Enter mark mode]

Down, down, down, right, right, right [Move the cursor]

Shift-right, shift-down, shift-right [Extend the selection]

Enter [Copy the selection to the clipboard]

 

Yay! Thanks Dan!