Triple-Click

What is this triple-click I keep using? I’m assuming I learned this by chance through all of the clicking I do while reading long texts on-line. Here’s the deal: You can triple-click (in Windows or Mac) the left mouse button in a variety of programs to achieve somewhat varying results. To clarify; Triple-clicking is simply quickly pressing the mouse button three times very similar to double-clicking where you click twice quickly (and changing the speed for double-click speed in any operating system actually effects triple-clicking speed as well.)

Here’s the deal; I haven’t yet found where it comes from, but you can use it in the following ways in most popular operating systems: Triple-clicking (to triple-click herein referred to as TC) a paragraph in Microsoft Word – and many similar applications but not all word processors – will select a paragraph. You can TC in a web browser to select all of the text (and/or other elements) in an HTML (or XHTML/XML) element. In Corel WordPerfect, Microsoft Works Word Processor, text-editors (like Notepad++ or TextMate) and on command-line or terminal applications TC on a line selects that line (according to Wikipedia, no citation provided.)

In case you are curious, a double click selects a word which the mouse is over in almost every program I’ve used displaying font text.