a contiguous range of text. Using the SCI_SWAPMAINANCHORCARET Scintilla command from the Shortcut mapper, you can choose whether the caret starts or ends the selection.
</p><p>However, Notepad++ also knows about rectangular selections, which define a rectangle of strips on contiguous lines. To select a rectangle, use the
above methods while also holding the <spanclass="Shortcut">Alt</span> modifier key down. For exmple, the basic way with
the mouse is to <spanclass="Shortcut">Alt-click</span> the start point and Alt-move the mouse to the end point, and so forth. The Alt- versions of keyboard shortcuts can be changed as well.
</p><p>It is possible to combine a stream selection and arectangular selection, using the keyboard.
This is probably less useful, but is not a bug.
</p><p>The <spanclass="menu_item">Edit -> Line operations -> Move Up/Down current line</span> commands also move the selected area, if it is not rectangular. This ability is lost when several selections are made - see below.
</p><h2>Multiple stream selections</h2>
<p>If a stream area is selected, it is possible to add another, disjoint area by Ctrl-clicking its start point and moving the mouse to the end point.
More than one extra selection can be added this way. However, this ability
does not extend to rectangular selections. A rectangular selection may still cling to one of the stream selections though. The SCI_ROTATESELECTION Scintilla command enables to cycle through selections, in the order they were defined.
</p><p>When copying or cutting a multiple selection, the text is recorded in the order the selections appear, regardless of the order in which they were made.