UPDATE: To be clear, we are talking about a literal sentence, demarcated by end-stopping punctuation. We are not referring to a line or block demarcated only by line breaks.
Use case or problem
When writing prose in Obsidian, I often need to manipulate a sentence.
E.g., deleting a sentence, applying bold or italics to a sentence, or changing the capitalization of a sentence using the text format plug-in.
The ability to quickly select a sentence via keyboard increases the accessibility of the application for users who have limited use of the mouse and keyboard due to disability. With repetitive strain injury, clicking and dragging the mouse or using several chorded keystrokes via the arrow keys to select a sentence can be a physical hardship.
A select current sentence hotkey also makes text selection easier for users who do not have the resources or incentive to invest in learning Vim, which has limited use for those who do not work with code editors.
Proposed solution
Assign a customizable keyboard shortcut to select the current sentence, similar to Microsoft Word, Writemonkey, and other prose-focused editors.
The default hotkey for the mentioned editors is usually a Function hotkey such as F8. When pressed, a sentence is selected, as delimited by the characters new line, ., !, ?, and " depending on the context.
Current workaround (optional)
Currently, the only ways to select a sentence are by:
- Reaching for the mouse
- Using vim
- Using Ctrl/Cmd/shift/arrow keys to select the desired text
Related feature requests (optional)
A discussion of the same need, but not a feature request:
Feature request to select current line. Related but distinct and has many of the same justifications as the select sentence hotkey currently being proposed.