> I disagree. People know how to select text. Let's not make them > change their habits to use this app. Also, having multiple different > types of selection seems like it would be very confusing. If you can > just select some text and see the option to "stage selected lines" we > get the best of both worlds without imposing multiple different types > of selection on the user. The addition of a frame that makes it clear > that staging will extend beyond the user's selection to incorporate > complete lines makes it even more clear. The user doesn't have to > learn anything new to use this.
Users do know how to select text, but to me it's not at all obvious that if I want to stage some line, I should select a portion of that line to activate a Stage Line button. Our "selection for stage" has very different semantics. Should regular selection be inhibited at chunk boundaries? If not, is it clear why the "frame" no longer follows the selected text as you drag? This also kills the "double-click to select contiguous range" functionality that I personally use quite a bit. With the "select the numbers" approach, the indication of selected lines could be on the numbers themselves (instead of/in addition to the lines). It may not be obvious to click over there though.
