RAD Studio 2009 Persistent Selection Issue: Bug or Feature?

Question

Sometimes, when coding in RAD Studio 2009 (Delphi), suddently the behaviour of the code editor changes. After such an event, a selection is no longer cleared on character input. This often happens after a session of very intense coding (many characters per second!), so I might accidently hit a keyboard (shortcut) combination.

Is this the case? How to "fix" the issue? (I want my selections to be ereased upon character input!)

Answer 1

This is a bug, and you don't have to quit and restart to fix it. Just hit Insert twice (which changes the text entry mode between Insert and Overwrite and then back) and your text selection will be back to working normally. It's notoriously difficult to pin down, though from my own experience it seems to have something to do with mixing SyncEdit and Undo. If anyone's able to find any way to reproduce this consistently, please send it to QC.

Answer 2

When this happens, you should be able to toggle the "Persistent blocks" option on and then off again. Go to "Tools | Options | Editor Options". Turn on "Persistent blocks", and click OK in the dialog. Then go back and undo that operation, and the editor should reset itself.

BTW, this is definitely a bug. If you are able to reliably reproduce it, a test case submitted to QualityCentral would be most useful.