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helterskelter 4 hours ago

Up next for 0.13: multiple cursors! I have no idea what I'd do with this feature but it sounds intriguing.

https://neovim.io/roadmap/

w4rh4wk5 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Multi cursor support in VSCode replaced 98% of my need for macros. Yes, macros are more powerful, but they are pretty easy to get wrong. With multiple cursors, it's far easier to spot where your inputs don't work out and adjust accordingly.

Multi cursor is the feature that increased my productivity the most across the board.

cassepipe 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Forget macros and multi-cursor. (Regex) substitutions from vim's command line replaced 98% of my editing needs and rendered a lot of my vim-fu useless.

(Just like searching with / replaced 98% of my navigation)

Editing something without having to actually place the cursor anywhere is a killer feature

Also neovim can show you your substitutions live, no need for a plugin anymore. It's the default.

mayli 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Bro, not every guy/girl is a regex master, multi-cursor is a much better UI/UX wysiwyg editor for everyday users.

cpill 39 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Word Bro! Regex is so simple to read and easy to get right... and its like if Immanuel Kant wrote find and replace, yeah, learn a new language to do a single function... yEAH! 98% Bro! I'd marry Regex if I could (but if we got divorced it would be my exregex [which is almost a palindrome!] Bro!)

an hour ago | parent | prev [-]
[deleted]
latexr an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Without meaning to sound like the “friendship ended” meme, I was a heavy user of macros in vim and neovim. It was probably my favourite feature. After I switched to Helix, I began using multiple cursors and now those are my favourite feature, I barely use macros anymore. Being able to see your movements live and intelligently using multiple clipboard is not just powerful, it’s fun too and rewards well-designed code.

skydhash 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Proper macros are vim and emacs one. They have proper movement shortcut that fits both code and prose.

Especially as code is formal notation, such that it’s structured quite rigidly, macros composition can be seen as a meta language. Multi cursors is more suited for the “work hard, not smart”, like preferring litteral search instead of learning regex.

alwillis an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Looking forward to multiple cursors… but Vim/Neovim can already do some of the common use-cases for multiple cursors, like prepending (or appending) text to a bunch of lines using visual block mode [1].

Here’s a video example [2]:

[1]: https://neovim.io/doc/user/usr_10/#_visual-block-mode

[2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/jai57c/the_usefulness_...

Iridescent_ 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Kakoune has replaced many features with multicursor, including the sed-like commands (where you just select an area, search for patterns inside it to create the multiple cursors, then perform regular edits (which also means you can perform much more complex than simple replaces). It is really useful for refactors, e.g. even if you don't have any LSP (e.g. for plain text) you can easily rename symbols, reorder/select in log files, etc

steve_adams_86 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm not sure how people typically use neovim, but in Zed I find multiple cursors (especially combined with multiple file buffers) extremely ergonomic for refactoring quickly and easily where tools like find and replace or simple renaming doesn't suffice. It lets you scan through and add cursors where you need them, then perform your edits across locations and even files all at once. It's so nice that it played a significant role in me keeping Zed early on despite it missing a lot of extensions I used in VS Code.

thiht an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Not sure I under the Zed argument, VSCode has supported milti-cursors since the very beginning. It was made popular (not invented) by Sublime Text because it made it reaaaally easy (middle click+drag), so Atom and VSCode carried the feature.

gesis 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I am so used to sed-style, regex powered find/replace, that this use admittedly never occured to me. As a result, multi-cursor seemed mostly useless outside of pair programming that I never do.

I will have to try it out once it lands in neovim just to see if I can wrap my muscle memory around it.

steve_adams_86 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've always told myself I should learn to do these sed/regex find and replace techniques, but my origins are not sophisticated and I use computers like that orangutan hammering nails in the video with David Attenborough https://youtu.be/IFACrIx5SZ0?si=NcWGBNq272KoYB2i&t=84

It's entirely possible that you don't need multiple cursors

runevault 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

For me the nice thing about multiple cursors is when it would take more time to write the regex than it does to just throw down say 8 cursors and update the spots.

wredcoll an hour ago | parent | next [-]

How do you place the cursors then?

hiccuphippo 27 minutes ago | parent [-]

In vim?

Ctrl+v, 8, j, shift+i, add the text, Esc.

Which works if you need to edit several aligned lines in a row. The one thing I'm missing is putting the cursors on the next found position of a search term which would make it much more useful.

skydhash 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There’s an overlap between “Find and Replace” and Macros, but it’s too small for multi cursors to be particularly useful for me. Especially with emacs where I can bring up all the lines in a separate buffer and edit them there (occur-mode) or do the same for a set of files (grep-mode and wgrep)

bluecalm 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You have very convenient macros. If there is something you want to do in places you are going to mark first then you can just execute it right there instead. If it's just one edit you just do it right there without macro and use the dot to repeat it in more places.

If those places can be created automatically then again it's just a macro you execute over many lines.

eviks 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You'd do text editing with it with the coolest feedback loop - immediately seeing the changes and what those changes apply to beforehand, that's different from having to repeat some macro multiple times

dizhn 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Highlighted search/replace does this pretty well too.

qiine 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Image API: vim.ui.img"

Oh neat!

meekins 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Really excited about this! At least in Sublime Text I've found multiple cursors a really powerful tool for ad-hoc transformations on snippets of semi-structured text or instantly and visually applying the same edit on multiple similar lines.

themadsens 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Whats with all the fuss over multicursor. How is this different from just using '.'

wilkystyle 4 hours ago | parent [-]

dot repeat is the wrong comparison. A closer one would be macros, but even then a good multiple cursors implementation is often faster, more intuitive, and requires less cognitive overhead. One of the better examples of the usefulness of multiple cursors is from Emacs Rocks (link goes to 0:23):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jNa3axo40qM&t=23s

camgunz 3 hours ago | parent [-]

What do you when the things you want to change don't all fit on the screen at once?

wilkystyle an hour ago | parent | next [-]

At least in e.g. Emacs and sublime text, you can mark all occurrences throughout the entire file. Assuming the matches are similar enough that the same motions apply even if you can't see the cursor, you can perform those operations.

Otherwise, as a sibling comment said, incremental search/replace is your friend.

luxurytent 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You do a search/replace which has a similar function, although applied differently.

tekawade 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Lookup helix tutorial. It’s pretty useful.

andrepd 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Multiple cursors were the killer feature that got me to start using Sublime Text back in ~2010. Still an absolute staple of my text editing toolbox. Ctrl-D Ctrl-D Ctrl-D ...

natas 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

one cursor for you one cursor for claude code :)

luxurytent 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

LLMs: Look, I can write code! neovim users: hold my beer, multicursor is here!

scuff3d 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's funny because I miss this one all the time. I got use it in Sublime and VScode before making the jump to Neovim. I know you can get similar functionality from macros and what not, but it's just not the same.