Make Ctrl+K indent entire lines even when the first and last are only partially highlighted

Question

When we select text for indenting, e.g.

and Ctrl+k, we get this:

I don't think our target audience is accustomed to this behavior, although I could be wrong. The following programs indent entire lines, as I'd expect:

• Eclipse (tested on Kepler SR1)
• Ideone (tested on 2013-10-29)
• NetBeans (tested on version 7.4)
• Notepad++ (tested on version 6.5)
• Sublime Text (tested on version 2.0.2)
• UltraEdit (tested on version 19.10.0.1012)
• vi(m)—well, in this case, the Visual block already extends to the beginning of the line.

I know this is really minor, but every time it happens to me (a few times a week, though my brain might be filtering more frequent occurences) I tell myself I'll post on meta and I never do, so... here it is.

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P.S. When only one line is highlighted, Eclipse, Notepad++, Sublime Text, and UltraEdit all simply replace that portion with a tab, which makes sense in their contexts, but doesn't apply here. Stack Exchange backticks the selection in that case, which I think makes sense and should stay.

Answer 1

I support this proposal. Based on the current behavior, the assumption would appear to be that we write posts like this:

I am having an issue with foo when I pass in an uninitialized bar: var bar;
//This is where the problem is
foo( bar ); The defined behavior should be a return value of baz... am I misunderstanding something?

Certainly some questions come in this way, but usually from low rep users who don't use the formatting tools in the first place. In practice, I see very, very few questions this poorly formatted. Most low rep users know to separate their code from the rest of their content. Professional programmers who spend time with the site (and, as I said, even most hobbyists who are new to the site) are much more likely to format like so:

I am having an issue with foo when I pass in an uninitialized bar:

var bar;
//This is where the problem is
foo( bar );

The defined behavior should be a return value of baz... am I misunderstanding something?

Now, when a knowledgable programmer who is used to using code editors selects starting from somewhere in the middle of the first line to somewhere in the middle of the last line and presses Ctrl + K, the following happens:

I am having an issue with foo when I pass in an uninitialized bar:

var b

ar;  
//This is where the problem is  
foo( 

bar );

The defined behavior should be a return value of baz... am I misunderstanding something?

This then becomes a bit of a mess to clean up after¹. Attempting to reverse the indent (as you might when using a code editor) leaves you with this:

I am having an issue with foo when I pass in an uninitialized bar:

var b

ar;
//This is where the problem is
foo(

bar );

The defined behavior should be a return value of baz... am I misunderstanding something?

Realizing your mistake, you can now press Ctrl + Z (once!) to get back to where you were, but at this point I've usually lost faith in the editor and have switched to using TextPad.

If we changed the behavior to match that of nearly all professional code and text editors, then someone attempting to use the formatting shortcut on the first example would end up with this:

I am having an issue with foo when I pass in an uninitialized bar: var bar;  
\\This is where the problem is  
foo( bar ); The defined behavior should be a return value of baz... am I misunderstanding something?

Which can be easily undone using the same stroke which caused the formatting faux pas, and then formatted correctly by adding the necessary whitespace. (Again, I can't think of any examples where someone has actually submitted a post like this.)

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In conclusion (TL;DR), I think this request is justified for at least the following reasons:

• It better aligns with existing conventions within the programmer community (the goal is, after all, to edit code, even if the post contains other non-code content)
• It is easier more intuitive to undo¹
• It would be appropriate for (in my unresearched opinion) the majority of posts
• The current behavior is actually destructive to the original post for those caught unawares

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¹ As Dukeling pointed out, Ctrl + Z will undo the formatting in a single stroke. I don't know why this hadn't occurred to me before. I still think that pressing Ctrl + K twice should leave you with the same content as you started with, but this "easier to undo" point is a bit weaker now.

Answer 2

I really like the idea, but the only issue with me is that oftentimes I want to specifically comment variable-names within the sentence:

Say -

the user then clicks on the JButton and it triggers myNewFlashyFunction again.

So what I'd like is that, yes - allow Ctrl+K to indent irrespective of highlighting-completion, but then assign a new keyboard shortcut to specifically indent exactly what I've selected, and nothing more.