In user interface engineering, a selection is a list of items on which user operations will take place. The user typically adds items to the list manually, although the computer may create a selection automatically.
- Text selection is strongly associated with the cut, copy and paste operations.
- Image editing applications have complex tools for the selection of areas of an image.
- Files and other interface components can be selected started with the advent of GUIs.
Context menus will usually include actions related to the objects included in the current selection - the selection provides the "context" for the menu.
Multiple selection is the simultaneous selection of a group of items.
Simultaneous editing is a technique in End-user development research that allows the user to manipulate all the selected items at once through direct manipulation. The Lapis text editor and the multi-edit plugin for gedit[1] are examples of this technique. The term simultaneous editing is also used to describe collaborative real-time editors.