/vim-visual-multi

Multiple cursors plugin for vim/neovim

Primary LanguageVim ScriptMIT LicenseMIT

vim-visual-multi

It's called vim-visual-multi in analogy with visual-block, but the plugin works mostly from normal mode.

Basic usage:

  • select words with Ctrl-N (like Ctrl-d in Sublime Text/VS Code)
  • create cursors vertically with Ctrl-Down/Ctrl-Up
  • select one character at a time with Shift-Arrows
  • press n/N to get next/previous occurrence
  • press [/] to select next/previous cursor
  • press q to skip current and get next occurrence
  • press Q to remove current cursor/selection
  • start insert mode with i,a,I,A

Two main modes:

  • in cursor mode commands work as they would in normal mode
  • in extend mode commands work as they would in visual mode
  • press Tab to switch between «cursor» and «extend» mode

Most vim commands work as expected (motions, r to replace characters, ~ to change case, etc). Additionally you can:

  • run macros/ex/normal commands at cursors
  • align cursors
  • transpose selections
  • add patterns with regex, or from visual mode

And more... of course, you can enter insert mode and autocomplete will work.

Installation

With vim-plug:

Plug 'mg979/vim-visual-multi', {'branch': 'master'}

With Vim 8+:

mkdir -p ~/.vim/pack/plugins/start && git clone https://github.com/mg979/vim-visual-multi ~/.vim/pack/plugins/start/vim-visual-multi

Documentation

:help visual-multi

For some specific topic it's often:

:help vm-some-topic

Tutorial

To run the tutorial:

vim -Nu path/to/visual-multi/tutorialrc

The wiki was the first documentation for the plugin, but many pictures are outdated and contain wrong mappings. Still, you can take a look.

You could read at least the Quick Start.


Some (sometimes very old) random pics:


Insert mode with autocomplete, alignment (mappings in pic have changed, don't trust them)

Imgur


Undo/Redo edits and selections

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Alternate cursor/extend mode, motions (even %), reverse direction (as in visual mode) and extend from the back. At any time you can switch from extend to cursor mode and viceversa.

Imgur


Select inside/around brackets/quotes/etc:

Imgur


Select operator, here shown with 'wellle/targets.vim' plugin: sib, sia, saa + selection shift

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Synched column transposition

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Unsynched transposition (cycle all regions, also in different lines)

Imgur


Shift regions left and right (M-S-<>)

Imgur


Find words under cursor, add new words (patterns stack), navigate regions, skip them, add regions with regex.

Imgur


Normal/Visual/Ex commands at cursors

Imgur


Macros. Shorter lines are skipped when adding cursors vertically.

Imgur


Some editing functions: yank, delete, paste from register, paste block from yanked regions

Imgur


Case conversion

Imgur