Simple, really.

Suppose you type "Aquamarine and pale chartreuse are my favorite colors." Then you want it reversed.

The old way: Highlight "pale chartreuse"; CUT; move cursor to beginning and PASTE. Then you still have to select "Aquamarine"; CUT; move cursor after "and" and choose PASTE. Two messy steps. Plus, you might easily get the spacing wrong (e.g. leave out a space or put two spaces instead). Plus, I almost forgot: Aquamarine is still capitalized so I have to undo that, and "pale" needs to be capitalized now.

My way: Highlight "Aquamarine and pale chartreuse" and click "Switcheroo" and the computer does it for you.

The word processor searches for the conjunction (and, or, plus, +, ;, [comma], with, /) and automatically does the steps for you.

Type "antediluvian/archaic" and want it switched? One click! Type "7394829384092834 + 18490928398492" and want the addends transposed? One click.
-- phundug, Aug 25 2004

I like I'll and it vote for it.
-- Worldgineer, Aug 25 2004


What about longer lists? Might we be able to select the list, the word processor askes for the order, and then performs the order. Maybe ask for it by placing small text fields above each item, into which you place the number of the order you would like. Can right click and choose alphabetical, decending/acending length, random etc for quick sorting. Would be a good deplaguarizing (sp?) tool.
-- daseva, Aug 25 2004


Might work well as a drag-and-drop feature. Highlight a word, hold down a key (shift?), and drag it to another location. If the location is within the list it changes the list.
-- Worldgineer, Aug 25 2004


//Plus, you might easily get the spacing wrong (e.g. leave out a space or put two spaces instead).// This (correct spacing in cut and paste) seems to be automated in MS Word.
-- FarmerJohn, Aug 25 2004


I turned off my "smart cut and paste". Can't remember why... Oh, yes. It interfered when I typed formulas and made up my own abbreviations for things. Word would have to reactivate it, but only when I did the switcheroo on something.
-- phundug, Aug 25 2004


I like it, working on a solution in code at the moment. Natural Language Processing is cool stuff. My initial thoughts on this would be to build a tree of the selected fragment, determine which parts could be switched (the parts that fall on either side of a delimiter), figure out any dependencies and special cases and switch them. The tree could then be traversed to produce a valid statement. To determine the delimiter, you would want to choose the least common delimiter in a token stream. Spaces would always be treated as the most common delimiter.
-- bmadigan, Aug 25 2004


I'm also writing a VB macro for this. But it's very often needed so should come with the program.

P.S. No drag and drops, please. Just something simple that works.
-- phundug, Aug 25 2004



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