Previous Visual Studio versions had the ability to make a box selection in text editors by holding the ALT key down while selecting with the mouse. More than once, I used this to select a column full of "public" modifiers on member variables, hoping that I could paste or type something which would replace what I'd selected on the whole column. Alas; it was not so! As a result, I generally never used block selection.
However, Visual Studio 2010 now does what I'd always hoped it would! From "What's New in the Visual Studio 2010 Editor (link)":
Box Selection
In previous releases of Visual Studio, you could select a rectangular region
of text by holding down the Alt key while selecting a region with the mouse. You
could then copy or delete the selected text. VS 2010 adds the following new
capabilities to the box selection feature:
-
Text insertion: Type into a box selection to insert the new text on every
selected line.
-
Paste: Paste the contents of one box selection into another.
-
Zero-length boxes: Make a vertical selection zero characters wide to create a
multi-line insertion point for new or copied text.
You can use these capabilities to rapidly operate on groups of statements,
such as changing access modifiers, setting fields, or adding comments. For more
information, see How to:
Select and Change Text.
All I can say is; Woo hoo! Okay; so very small things entertain me.