3 ms·

Am I the only one who doesn't get the multi-cursor hype? Having said that I never used it, so maybe I'm missing out.

kreetx 4y ago
You are not. Perhaps people who use it can elaborate, but it seems to be an interactive search-and-replace with highlighting. Is it anything more?
- CraigJPerry 4y ago
  In vscode if my cursor is in a word, i Ctrl+D to select that, then Ctrl+D to select further matches, then begin typing over them. There's other modes too where you can just add more cursors to a line below/above but i find less use for that. But in vim it's not much slower to do: /<search term> cgn " change this this i just matched . " find next occurance AND execute the change here too, i don't have to say "n ." because i used cgn above instead of something like cw But i still end up relying on qq " stick a macro in q register <complex edit sequence> @q / @@ For more gnarly stuff
  - ckolkey 4y ago
    presuming you did a `/<search>` for the results you want, you can follow it up with: :%s//<replacement>/gc
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- alex_smart 4y ago
  It is more like interactive editor macros where you can see the intermediate results on the fly. The advantage over search-and-replace is that you get to work with a nice, familiar language (the interactive commands you send to your editor) rather than using regex.
atsider 4y ago
Yep, to me it's not far superior to find-replace: https://nullprogram.com/blog/2017/09/07/ https://nullprogram.com/blog/2017/09/07/
- alpaca128 4y ago
  With the right controls it might be a better (more flexible) version of Vim's block selection mode. Which I use almost daily, it's super useful but depends on lines being vertically aligned, which multiple cursors don't need to care about. But I don't see another purpose for them; find-replace with regex support and macros only fail in rare cases where actual syntax parsing is needed.
draxil 4y ago
I used to think "surely this is just fancy find and replace". But actually it's more like defining a keyboard macro. It's very powerful and quicker and easier than a macro for a lot of tasks.
mtnygard 4y ago
I think the utility is proportional to the degree of repetition in your files.

You are not. Perhaps people who use it can elaborate, but it seems to be an interactive search-and-replace with highlighting. Is it anything more?

CraigJPerry 4y ago
In vscode if my cursor is in a word, i Ctrl+D to select that, then Ctrl+D to select further matches, then begin typing over them. There's other modes too where you can just add more cursors to a line below/above but i find less use for that. But in vim it's not much slower to do: /<search term> cgn " change this this i just matched . " find next occurance AND execute the change here too, i don't have to say "n ." because i used cgn above instead of something like cw But i still end up relying on qq " stick a macro in q register <complex edit sequence> @q / @@ For more gnarly stuff
- ckolkey 4y ago
  presuming you did a `/<search>` for the results you want, you can follow it up with: :%s//<replacement>/gc
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
alex_smart 4y ago
It is more like interactive editor macros where you can see the intermediate results on the fly. The advantage over search-and-replace is that you get to work with a nice, familiar language (the interactive commands you send to your editor) rather than using regex.

atsider 4y ago

Yep, to me it's not far superior to find-replace: https://nullprogram.com/blog/2017/09/07/ https://nullprogram.com/blog/2017/09/07/

alpaca128 4y ago
With the right controls it might be a better (more flexible) version of Vim's block selection mode. Which I use almost daily, it's super useful but depends on lines being vertically aligned, which multiple cursors don't need to care about. But I don't see another purpose for them; find-replace with regex support and macros only fail in rare cases where actual syntax parsing is needed.

draxil 4y ago

I used to think "surely this is just fancy find and replace". But actually it's more like defining a keyboard macro. It's very powerful and quicker and easier than a macro for a lot of tasks.

mtnygard 4y ago

I think the utility is proportional to the degree of repetition in your files.