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The two main reasons I use and love multiple cursors aren't mentioned here: 1. I find it's easier to figure out what I want. If I use a command that doesn't ge

The two main reasons I use and love multiple cursors aren't mentioned here: 1. I find it's easier to figure out what I want. If I use a command that doesn't generalize, I see it immediately. When I use vim macros I find I either have to redo my macro multiple times if I screw up, or spend a bunch of time thinking about how to correctly generalize my commands while writing the macro. 2. There are less concepts to learn and think about applying. You can replace multiple cursors with a combination of macros, rectangular selection and find/replace. But, I find all that functionality easier to think about and apply when it's all unified into one simple system.

andybak 9y ago
Multiple cursors don't require me to switch my brain to an entirely different domain to figure out what to do. It feels like my fingers can happily handle multiple cursor edits - leaving my brain to continue focusing on whatever it was I was actually doing.
omaranto 9y ago
The way I've phrased your point 1 in the past is that multiple cursors are like interactive programming in a REPL and using macros is more like being on an edit-save-run cycle (not quite, because you do see the original run of the macro, the one you're recording, live).
falcolas 9y ago
Why multiple cursors don't work (for me, of course): 1) I'm limited to what I can see. I can't see that a command does not generalize unless it's on the screen. Most files I work on take up more than the one screen I'm on. 2) Multiple cursors tend to have really limited flexibility - if it can't be done easily with the available movement keys, often times it can't be done. Macros, on the other hand, can easily move non-contiguously. Yeah, macros do require a bit of extra thought around "how do I program the text editor to do what I want", but they usually do the right thing. It helps that macros are easy to record and use in vim, and that a macro can call another macro. Of course, I have used multiple cursors before, but usually only in data files which follow strict columnar formats.
- mickronome 9y ago
  Isn't what you are describing simply implementation deficiencies of current multi-cursor implementations ? Conceptually, multiple cursors are nothing but a partial visualisation of a macro functionality.
- trishume 9y ago
  I don't encounter either problem: 1) If I'm editing things that don't fit on one screen, I'll scroll and check them all after I'm done. This is no slower than the scrolling needed during the step of applying a macro everywhere and checking it. And I at least get feedback from one page while composing my edits, with macros I get none. 2) I use multiple cursors with Vintageous in Sublime, so I get most of the power of vim macros, but with multiple cursors instead.
cyphar 9y ago
> When I use vim macros I find I either have to redo my macro multiple times if I screw up, or spend a bunch of time thinking about how to correctly generalize my commands while writing the macro. In Vim you can put the contents of a macro into a buffer, modify it like a file, then replace the macro with the modified one.

andybak 9y ago

Multiple cursors don't require me to switch my brain to an entirely different domain to figure out what to do. It feels like my fingers can happily handle multiple cursor edits - leaving my brain to continue focusing on whatever it was I was actually doing.

omaranto 9y ago

The way I've phrased your point 1 in the past is that multiple cursors are like interactive programming in a REPL and using macros is more like being on an edit-save-run cycle (not quite, because you do see the original run of the macro, the one you're recording, live).

falcolas 9y ago

Why multiple cursors don't work (for me, of course): 1) I'm limited to what I can see. I can't see that a command does not generalize unless it's on the screen. Most files I work on take up more than the one screen I'm on. 2) Multiple cursors tend to have really limited flexibility - if it can't be done easily with the available movement keys, often times it can't be done. Macros, on the other hand, can easily move non-contiguously. Yeah, macros do require a bit of extra thought around "how do I program the text editor to do what I want", but they usually do the right thing. It helps that macros are easy to record and use in vim, and that a macro can call another macro. Of course, I have used multiple cursors before, but usually only in data files which follow strict columnar formats.

mickronome 9y ago
Isn't what you are describing simply implementation deficiencies of current multi-cursor implementations ? Conceptually, multiple cursors are nothing but a partial visualisation of a macro functionality.
trishume 9y ago
I don't encounter either problem: 1) If I'm editing things that don't fit on one screen, I'll scroll and check them all after I'm done. This is no slower than the scrolling needed during the step of applying a macro everywhere and checking it. And I at least get feedback from one page while composing my edits, with macros I get none. 2) I use multiple cursors with Vintageous in Sublime, so I get most of the power of vim macros, but with multiple cursors instead.

cyphar 9y ago

> When I use vim macros I find I either have to redo my macro multiple times if I screw up, or spend a bunch of time thinking about how to correctly generalize my commands while writing the macro. In Vim you can put the contents of a macro into a buffer, modify it like a file, then replace the macro with the modified one.