It is possible to highlight an area of a reading or the consensus sequence in preparation for performing some further action upon it. Such examples of actions are: creating annotations and pasting into a new window. We call these highlighted areas "selections". They are displayed as an underlined region.
The simplest way to make a selection is using the left mouse button. Pressing the mouse button marks the base beneath the cursor as the start of the selection. Then, without releasing the button, moving the mouse cursor adjusts the end of the selection. Finally releasing the button will allow normal use of the mouse again. If while marking a selection we reach the edge of the window then the editor will automatically start scrolling for us.
Sometimes we may wish to make a particularly long selection, or just extend an existing selection after we've already released the mouse button. This can be done by using shift left mouse button to adjust the end of the selection. Hence we can mark the start of the selection using the left button, scroll along the contig to the desired position, and set the end using the shift left button.
The selection is stored in the "clipboard". This allows for the usual "cut and paste" operations between applications, although the contig editor only supports this in one direction (as it is not possible to "paste" into the window). The mechanism employed for this follows the usual X Windows standard of using the middle mouse button.
A quick summary of the mouse selection commands follows.
Left button Position editing cursor to mouse cursor Left button (drag) Mark start and end of selection Shift left button Adjust end of selection Middle button (in another window) Copy selected sequence