4 ms·

What are the main use cases of multiple cursors? It seemed like an interesting feature, and I'm curious why it would be considered essential.

wishinghand 10y ago
It's basically a visual regular expressions. So I'll caveat my original statement that if you don't know regex, you need it. I never learned regex because I came from a self-taught, web development oriented background. So if I need to replace all instances of a variable, then go to the end of the line they were on and type in a different variable name or add a semi-colin, that's what I use.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
I use them very often in Emacs instead of keyboard macros. They are useful whenever you have to perform the exact same operations in several places simultaneously visible on the screen[0]. By operations I mean both simple ones, like writing something, and more complex ones, like navigating/deleting whole words (of different length), etc. Mostly I use it for quick renaming of variables, string fixes, and some structural changes in code. -- [0] - multiple cursors, at least in Emacs, can work off-screen too, but I don't like not seeing what's going on when I do changes.
- NoGravitas 10y ago
  I also do this, though I use iedit-mode rather than multiple-cursor-mode. However, I do like to point out that it's really just eye-candy for stuff I was already able to do in emacs. Previously, I would have used either keyboard macros or query-replace-regexp to do the same things.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    I second it. I too used either keyboard macros or query-replace- commands before. Multiple cursors is just nicer for these particular things.
euyyn 10y ago
For me it's mainly part of this sequence: Ctrl-F <search query> SelectAll <edit with multiple cursors> Do it all the time.
- heartbreak 10y ago
  I love the CTRL+CMD+G route as well. Use it constantly when refactoring.
madeofpalk 10y ago
Lots of little things. Select a multiple lines of an object/hash/dict, break into multiple cursors, rewrite line (copying and pasting as needed, it works that out as well) to change to variable declarations, or to add a comma, or to... whatever.
breck 10y ago
I often use "multiple cursors" as vertical cursors, to indent or dedent a whole block of code 1 space at a time. Often useful for contexts when shift+tab/tab doesn't work.

wishinghand 10y ago

It's basically a visual regular expressions. So I'll caveat my original statement that if you don't know regex, you need it. I never learned regex because I came from a self-taught, web development oriented background. So if I need to replace all instances of a variable, then go to the end of the line they were on and type in a different variable name or add a semi-colin, that's what I use.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

I use them very often in Emacs instead of keyboard macros. They are useful whenever you have to perform the exact same operations in several places simultaneously visible on the screen[0]. By operations I mean both simple ones, like writing something, and more complex ones, like navigating/deleting whole words (of different length), etc. Mostly I use it for quick renaming of variables, string fixes, and some structural changes in code. -- [0] - multiple cursors, at least in Emacs, can work off-screen too, but I don't like not seeing what's going on when I do changes.

NoGravitas 10y ago
I also do this, though I use iedit-mode rather than multiple-cursor-mode. However, I do like to point out that it's really just eye-candy for stuff I was already able to do in emacs. Previously, I would have used either keyboard macros or query-replace-regexp to do the same things.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  I second it. I too used either keyboard macros or query-replace- commands before. Multiple cursors is just nicer for these particular things.

euyyn 10y ago

For me it's mainly part of this sequence: Ctrl-F <search query> SelectAll <edit with multiple cursors> Do it all the time.

heartbreak 10y ago
I love the CTRL+CMD+G route as well. Use it constantly when refactoring.

madeofpalk 10y ago

Lots of little things. Select a multiple lines of an object/hash/dict, break into multiple cursors, rewrite line (copying and pasting as needed, it works that out as well) to change to variable declarations, or to add a comma, or to... whatever.

breck 10y ago

I often use "multiple cursors" as vertical cursors, to indent or dedent a whole block of code 1 space at a time. Often useful for contexts when shift+tab/tab doesn't work.