Disable horizontal cursor?

[mfaux]

Is there a way to disable the horizontal cursor in the XML editor?

[ChoccieMuffin]

Why on earth would you want to?!?

In answer to your question, no you can't disable it, and frankly I'd be horrified if it disappeared. It does as useful job as it shows you where you are in your document. In the screenshot you show, if you have the Text Editor open at the same time you will see that your cursor is in between the </li> marker at the end of the first bullet and the <li> marker at the beginning of the second bullet point. When you see the cursor here, if you press Enter on your keyboard, Flare inserts a new, blank list item.

Hope that little bit of info helps. (But I'd be really curious to know WHY you were wanting to turn it off.)

[Roland Weigelt]

After working with Flare for a few years now, for me it's more like "how do I turn ON a horizontal cursor in Microsoft Word?"...

[ChoccieMuffin]

After working with Flare for a few years now, for me it's more like "how do I turn ON a horizontal cursor in Microsoft Word?"...

[mfaux]

For me, the horizontal cursor is very frustrating. I use the keyboard a lot, and the cursor keeps interrupting how I'm used to working in any other editor.

For instance, if I want to select blocks of text, I hold Shift + arrow keys. I can't do this in Flare if the cursor happens to be horizontal; I need an extra step of positioning the cursor to be vertical.

I don't see the horizontal cursor adding any value (for me); it only complicates my editing experience. The standard vertical cursor already shows where I am in a document, and I know what to expect when I hit enter - a new line will be created, or, when in a list, a new list item will be created.

[devjoe]

The horizontal cursor does the same thing - it shows you where you are when your position is between two elements.

In your example, you have simple list items. However, many users use paragraph items (where the li tags have p tags inside them). Whenever you want a list item to contain multiple paragraphs of text (including, for example, an otherwise blank paragraph containing a screenshot image) or a table, you must use paragraph items. When you use paragraph items, the horizontal cursor lets you insert a new list item, while pressing enter with the vertical cursor would insert a new paragraph within the list item.

The horizontal cursor also lets you insert a new, unstyled paragraph between other elements. This is useful if, for instance, you have some paragraphs in special styles and you want to insert a new blank paragraph between them.

Another related thing that Flare does, but Word doesn't, is that when you are at the beginning or end of a span or other inline formatting block, the cursor can be at the end of the block inside the formatting block or outside but adjacent to the block. A left or right arrow key press moves between the two without advancing over any character. Word actually has this distinction between two different locations at the start/end of a formatting block also, but doesn't display it, and doesn't provide any easy way to get from one to the other if you are in the wrong one. You just end up typing in bold when you didn't want to, and you either have to select and unbold your new typing, or move the cursor and type somewhere else (with retype/delete of whatever you had to skip over to get in the right formatting zone).

[mfaux]

@devjoe, thank you for the detailed explanation! Very helpful.