Vim multiline editing like in sublimetext?

Question

I started to use gvim, and I can't quite understand how the multiline edit works in gvim.

For example:

Original text:

asd asd asd asd asd;
asd asd asd asd asd;
asd asd asd asd asd;
asd asd asd asd asd;
asd asd asd asd asd;
asd asd asd asd asd;
asd asd asd asd asd;

ctrl+q, jjjjjj , $ everything is selected, then i press I to do a multiline insert.

My intention is to insert quotes like in the first line, and then to press Esc:

asd "asd asd" asd asd;
asd asd asd asd asd;
asd asd asd asd asd;
asd asd asd asd asd;
asd asd asd asd asd;
asd asd asd asd asd;
asd asd asd asd asd;

What happened? I expected a behavior similar to sublimetext's one:

If you don't know how that works, it just repeats the actions for every line. How can achieve that? And what is vim doing here?

Nerveless

Just record a keyboard macro to change the first line and then playback the macro for all the other lines. – Barbur

just use github.com/mg979/vim-visual-multi – Silvertongued

Answer 1

Do yourself a favor by dropping the Windows compatibility layer.

The normal shortcut for entering Visual-Block mode is <C-v>.

Others have dealt with recording macros, here are a few other ideas:

Using only visual-block mode.

1. Put the cursor on the second word:

   asd |a|sd asd asd asd;
   asd asd asd asd asd;
   asd asd asd asd asd;
   asd asd asd asd asd;
   asd asd asd asd asd;
   asd asd asd asd asd;
   asd asd asd asd asd;
   

2. Hit <C-v> to enter visual-block mode and expand your selection toward the bottom:

   asd [a]sd asd asd asd;
   asd [a]sd asd asd asd;
   asd [a]sd asd asd asd;
   asd [a]sd asd asd asd;
   asd [a]sd asd asd asd;
   asd [a]sd asd asd asd;
   asd [a]sd asd asd asd;
   

3. Hit I"<Esc> to obtain:

   asd "asd asd asd asd;
   asd "asd asd asd asd;
   asd "asd asd asd asd;
   asd "asd asd asd asd;
   asd "asd asd asd asd;
   asd "asd asd asd asd;
   asd "asd asd asd asd;
   

4. Put the cursor on the last char of the third word:

   asd "asd as|d| asd asd;
   asd "asd asd asd asd;
   asd "asd asd asd asd;
   asd "asd asd asd asd;
   asd "asd asd asd asd;
   asd "asd asd asd asd;
   asd "asd asd asd asd;
   

5. Hit <C-v> to enter visual-block mode and expand your selection toward the bottom:

   asd "asd as[d] asd asd;
   asd "asd as[d] asd asd;
   asd "asd as[d] asd asd;
   asd "asd as[d] asd asd;
   asd "asd as[d] asd asd;
   asd "asd as[d] asd asd;
   asd "asd as[d] asd asd;
   

6. Hit A"<Esc> to obtain:

   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   

With visual-block mode and Surround.vim.

1. Put the cursor on the second word:

   asd |a|sd asd asd asd;
   asd asd asd asd asd;
   asd asd asd asd asd;
   asd asd asd asd asd;
   asd asd asd asd asd;
   asd asd asd asd asd;
   asd asd asd asd asd;
   

2. Hit <C-v> to enter visual-block mode and expand your selection toward the bottom and the right:

   asd [asd asd] asd asd;
   asd [asd asd] asd asd;
   asd [asd asd] asd asd;
   asd [asd asd] asd asd;
   asd [asd asd] asd asd;
   asd [asd asd] asd asd;
   asd [asd asd] asd asd;
   

3. Hit S" to surround your selection with ":

   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   

With visual-line mode and :normal.

1. Hit V to select the whole line and expand it toward the bottom:

   [asd asd asd asd asd;]
   [asd asd asd asd asd;]
   [asd asd asd asd asd;]
   [asd asd asd asd asd;]
   [asd asd asd asd asd;]
   [asd asd asd asd asd;]
   [asd asd asd asd asd;]
   

2. Execute this command: :'<,'>norm ^wi"<C-v><Esc>eea"<CR> to obtain:

   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   asd "asd asd" asd asd;
   

   • :norm[al] allows you to execute normal mode commands on a range of lines (the '<,'> part is added automatically by Vim and means "act on the selected area")

   • ^ puts the cursor on the first char of the line

   • w moves to the next word

   • i" inserts a " before the cursor

   • <C-v><Esc> is Vim's way to input a control character in this context, here it's <Esc> used to exit insert mode

   • ee moves to the end of the next word

   • a" appends a " after the cursor

   • <CR> executes the command

   Using Surround.vim, the command above becomes

   :'<,'>norm ^wvees"<CR>
   

Simas

For steps 4 and 5 I would recommend hitting gv to get your previous visual selection back, and then move horizontally, perhaps with 2e. (The more lines, the more valuable gv is!) – Remaremain

surround.vim uses a small s in normal mode but a big S in visual mode, so in step 3 of the surround.vim method, the keystrokes should be S" – Remaremain

Point 3 of visual-block + Surround.vim should be S", not s" – Ezzell

Instead of visual-block mode steps 5 and 6 you can simply put cursor after the third word and press .. – Danelledanete

This is cool, but this only works in some cases where the characters you want to edit on the different lines are at the exact same horizontal position on each line, and the edited lines are right one after another. Cant we cherry-pick where to enter in edit mode on which line in Vim ? We can in Sublim... EDIT : Actually the second answer is what I was looking for – Szymanski

Why do we need to use I instead of i when using only visual-block mode? #28341741 – Mccord

With visual-line mode and :normal. is complicated than what I am writing. – Piotr

Using only visual-block mode part, step 5-6 can use . to repeat previous operation. – Floccus

Could you explain what <C-v> is? I assume it means Ctrl+v but this is not obvious. – Nickelodeon

@AndrewBobulsky, your assumption is correct. This is the standard notation used in mappings and the de-facto standard when writing about Vim. See :help key-notation. – Simas

Answer 2

There are several ways to accomplish that in Vim. I don't know which are most similar to Sublime Text's though.

---

The first one would be via multiline insert mode. Put your cursor to the second "a" in the first line, press Ctrl-V, select all lines, then press I(capital i), and put in a doublequote. Pressing Escape will repeat the operation on every line.

---

The second one is via macros. Put the cursor on the first character, and start recording a macro with qa. Go the your right with llll, enter insert mode with a, put down a doublequote, exit insert mode, and go back to the beginning of your row with <home> (or equivalent). Press j to move down one row. Stop recording with q. And then replay the macro with @a. Several times.

---

Does any of the above approaches work for you?

Oversleep

Answer 3

Those are some good out-of-the box solutions given above, but we can also try some plugins which provide multiple cursors like Sublime.

I think this one looks promising:

• https://github.com/mg979/vim-visual-multi

It seemed abandoned for a while, but has had some contributions in 2014.

It is quite powerful, although it took me a little while to get used to the flow (which is quite Sublime-like but still modal like Vim).

In my experience if you have a lot of other plugins installed, you may meet some conflicts!

There are some others attempts at this feature:

• https://github.com/osyo-manga/vim-over (search-replace only, but with live preview)
• https://github.com/paradigm/vim-multicursor
• https://github.com/felixr/vim-multiedit
• https://github.com/hlissner/vim-multiedit (based on the previous)
• https://github.com/adinapoli/vim-markmultiple
• https://github.com/AndrewRadev/multichange.vim

Please feel free to edit if you notice any of these undergoing improvement.

Remaremain

Looks like github.com/osyo-manga/vim-over is the most active of the bunch at the moment. – Balata

Excellent, that's what I was looking for – Szymanski

After having tested most of them hlissner/vim-multiedit seems the best AFAIAC – Szymanski

Check mg979/vim-visual-multi as a good replacement for vim-multiple-cursors – Regularly

Check this beautiful medium article. I really didn't feel the need of any extension after reading this! – Raddie

Answer 4

if you use the "global" command, you can repeat what you can do on one online an any number of lines.

:g/<search>/.<your ex command>

example:

:g/foo/.s/bar/baz/g

The above command finds all lines that have foo, and replace all occurrences of bar on that line with baz.

:g/.*/

will do on every line

Escapism

This is so useful, I didn't know it. Seems so powerful and clever combination of commands. – Darreldarrell

For convenience, I wrote a little function that takes the word under the cursor (or the visually selected word), prompts for a replacement, and then runs the :g command described here. I like to use /gc to ask for "confirmations" so I can hit y or n for each replacement, or a to change all of them. – Remaremain

Answer 5

Ctrl-v ................ start visual block selection
6j .................... go down 6 lines
I" .................... inserts " at the beginning
<Esc><Esc> ............ finishes start
2fdl. ................. second 'd' l (goes right) . (repeats insertion)

Austrasia

In step 3, I can not enter the insert mode, do you know why this happens? – Meyeroff

Try loading vim with no plugins: vim -u NONE and try to perform the desired action again, it could be some map or plugin changing the behavior of your vim. – Austrasia

Answer 6

I'm not sure what vim is doing, but it is an interesting effect. The way you're describing what you want sounds more like how macros work (:help macro). Something like this would do what you want with macros (starting in normal-mode):

1. qa: Record macro to a register.
2. 0w: 0 goto start of line, w jump one word.
3. i"<Esc>: Enter insert-mode, insert a " and return to normal-mode.
4. 2e: Jump to end of second word.
5. a"<Esc>: Append a ".
6. jq Move to next line and end macro recording.

Taken together: qa0wi"<Esc>2ea"<Esc>

Now you can execute the macro with @a, repeat last macro with @@. To apply to the rest of the file, do something like 99@a which assumes you do not have more than 99 lines, macro execution will end when it reaches end of file.

Here is how to achieve what you want with visual-block-mode (starting in normal mode):

1. Navigate to where you want the first quote to be.
2. Enter visual-block-mode, select the lines you want to affect, G to go to the bottom of the file.
3. Hit I"<Esc>.
4. Move to the next spot you want to insert a ".
5. You want to repeat what you just did so a simple . will suffice.

Juna

No need for 99@a. If you wish to execute a macro on every line of a file try :%norm! @a. – Oversleep

Without the dots (they're just ends of sentences, not part of the commands) – Oversleep

9999@a may be ugly but it's much easier to type than :%norm! @a and it doesn't re-run on the line you just edited. Still good to know it anyway. :) – Remaremain

Answer 7

If somebody likes me found this old topics:

A great plugin : https://github.com/mg979/vim-visual-multi/

It is really close to the SublimeText multi line editing experience and works well.

Aweigh

Answer 8

My solution is to use these 2 mappings:

map <leader>n <Esc><Esc>0qq
map <leader>m q:'<,'>-1normal!@q<CR><Down>

---

How to use them:

1. Select your lines. If I want to select the next 12 lines I just press V12j
2. Press <leader>n
3. Make your changes to the line
4. Make sure you're in normal mode and then press <leader>m

To make another edit you don't need to make the selection again. Just press <leader>n, make your edit and press <leader>m to apply.

---

How this works:

• <Esc><Esc>0qq Exit the visual selection, go to the beginning of the line and start recording a macro.

• q Stop recording the macro.

• :'<,'>-1normal!@q<CR> From the start of the visual selection to the line before the end, play the macro on each line.

• <Down> Go back down to the last line.

---

You can also just map the same key but for different modes:

vmap <leader>m <Esc><Esc>0qq
nmap <leader>m q:'<,'>-1normal!@q<CR><Down>

Although this messes up your ability to make another edit. You'll have to re-select your lines.

Proprietary