alt-highlighting in all applications

[Boomhowler]

is there a way to turn alt-highlighting on in all applications, pages, X11 etc.

It works in textedit and the console...

 

[Makosuke]

The modifier key is usually called option on the Mac, but I assume you're talking about the ability to select in a "box" rather than full lines. Is that right?

If so, I believe it's pretty much up to the application developer whether they chose to take advantage of this feature or not. So no, so far as I know, there isn't a way to enable it on apps that don't support it (though with X11 apps I'd expect at least some to have the feature available, if not enabled by default).

 

[Boomhowler]

yes, its "box highlighting" I'm after.

and it's MatLab that I want to use the feature in, which happens to run in X11 but with no option/alt-highlighting