Is there an editor action for deleting selected text?

boni · February 13, 2025, 10:16am

Hi. There are quite a few actions for the different delete actions (EditorBackSpace, EditorDelete, EditorDeleteToWordStart, EditorDeleteToWordEnd) but none of these seem to apply for when the user deletes text that is selected. Am I missing something or does a separate action for this really not exist? If so, is there a workaround I could use?

karol.lewandowski · February 13, 2025, 10:47am

Hi,
Please describe your use case. What are you trying to achieve and why do you need the deletion action?

boni · February 13, 2025, 11:26am

We have an autoformatting functionality in our plugin that formats a small part of the file the user is typing in whenever its content changes (I know this isn’t usually recommended, but we’re paying attention to performance and it’s only a small part of the file). We are currently using all actions that I listed as well as a TypedHandler to react to any changes in our files, however there doesn’t seem to be a way for us to react when a user deletes text that they selected, resulting in an unformatted file which could be confusing and annoying to our users.

karol.lewandowski · February 13, 2025, 3:03pm

EditorDelete implemented with com.intellij.openapi.editor.actions.DeleteAction is the one that is triggered when deleting text in the editor.

boni · February 13, 2025, 3:42pm

That is correct, and it works when no text is selected in the editor and I press delete. If text is selected however (ie. highlighted like the word “profiles” on the attached screenshot), the event does not seem to be triggered. Is that unintended behavior?

karol.lewandowski · February 14, 2025, 8:45am

It works for me in both cases. Depending on the key I press, it invokes DeleteAction or BackspaceAction.

This is where I added a breakpoint:

github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community

platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/editor/actionSystem/EditorAction.java

243


      
          public synchronized void setInjectedContext(boolean worksInInjected) {
            super.setInjectedContext(worksInInjected);
            // we assume that this method is called in constructor at the point
            // where the chain of handlers is not initialized yet
            // and it's enough to pass the flag to the default handler only
            myHandler.setWorksInInjected(isInInjectedContext());
          }
          
          @Override
          public final void actionPerformed(@NotNull AnActionEvent e) {
            DataContext dataContext = e.getDataContext();
            Editor editor = getEditor(dataContext);
            if (this instanceof LatencyAwareEditorAction && editor != null) {
              String actionId = ActionManager.getInstance().getId(this);
              InputEvent inputEvent = e.getInputEvent();
              if (actionId != null && inputEvent != null) {
                LatencyRecorder.getInstance().recordLatencyAwareAction(editor, actionId, inputEvent.getWhen());
              }
            }
            actionPerformed(editor, dataContext);
          }

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Is there an editor action for deleting selected text?

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