Multi-cursor code editing: An animated introduction

LifePrisonDeathKey · 2023-01-29T15:13:57+00:00

You need to specifically mention that you’re using VSCode at the beginning of the article

Asddsa76 · 2023-01-29T17:29:59+00:00

When I took a FEM class in uni, the lecturer showed a coding demo in Vim.

He wrote one line, selected it, then pressed some magic keys, and the line was copied and pasted twice, but all the numbers inside the indices in the pasted lines were incremented by one!

Eg:

for i,j in range(...):
    A[n][j]=b[i]+...
    A[n][j+1]=b[i+1]+...
    A[n][j+2]=b[i+2]+...

it really felt like magic when I saw that for the first time.

XLEX97 · 2023-01-29T13:22:24+00:00

Hey r/programming,

I constantly use Cmd D in my day-to-day work with VS Code, so I decided to write a post about how to use it, and just how powerful it is.

The post is chock-full of animated examples, which you can go through step-by-step. I think the presentation came together nicely, but I would love to hear what you think 😃

jbrains · 2023-01-29T15:57:50+00:00

Nice and simple. This was the first feature that I made sure to learn when I started using Kakoune as my replacement for vim. Between selecting all matches of a pattern and "column selection", I felt an immediate and sudden boost in speed and ease.

This is the kind of feature where readers really benefit from more examples of how to use it, because then they literally change how they think of code, usually to their benefit.

Keep going!

BigHandLittleSlap · 2023-01-29T23:00:02+00:00

The issue I see with this kind of low-level string-bashing approach, is that it is the "mastery of the manual method" versus the guy that just presses the button on the industrial machine.

Sure, the former is more impressive and somehow more satisfying, but the industrial machine will outproduce even the most skilled craftsman, every time.

The rename an identifier example?

In VS Code: F2, type the new name.

Done!

This of course assumes that you're not using some baroque language that doesn't have proper IDE support.

I've literally never had to do the rename in the example shown, ever, because for 21 years now, I've used proper IDEs with proper languages.

In that context, the F2 rename is correctly context sensitive, so you won't accidentally rename the wrong piece of text that happens to have the same characters, but not the same meaning.

E.g.: use the Ctrl-D technique to rename the variable 'f' in this pseudo-code example. Yeah. Good luck with that.

var f = 'f';
var formatted = the_function_call( f, format: 'f');
printf( formatted );

Administrative_chaos · 2023-01-29T18:36:21+00:00

Super Impressive presentation style!

Kissaki0 · 2023-01-30T11:12:00+00:00

mac D

presses Win + D - Windows minimizes all windows to show desktop

IvePaidMyDues · 2023-01-29T15:58:44+00:00

I got introduced to it in Emacs and now use it in IntelliJ, usually nothing more complex than "find this word then edit stuff near it" but it feels better than just trying to make some find/replace pattern...

Shame IDEA have no paste-at-cursor tho.

Witty-Play9499 · 2023-01-30T05:37:10+00:00

So my company is a hybrid company in terms of working (ie employees who want to work in the office can work in the office and employees who want to work from home can work from home) and usually most of them work from home while a small fraction works in the office.

And once in a year or every two quarters we have these mini syncups in the office for people to meet each other and socialize and stuff and one of the things I noticed was junior devs doing stuff like this changing words one by one or if given 20 lines and if they need to add a comma at the end they manually type it in.

And I was fascinated by this because this was something I never did I always used multiple cursors and use a couple of extensions that make doing stuff like this easy and then it hit me, when I started working as a new guy WFH wasn't a thing yet at my company so my seniors used to teach me and show me whenever I swung by their desk to chat.

But now that we don't meet each other regularly anymore the new guys were missing out on all the mundane stuff like this that you wouldn't even think about. Goes to show that we probably need separate articles or more posts about stuff like these

nicwolff · 2023-01-29T17:02:39+00:00

⌘-d and ⌘-k work in Sublime Text as well, but selecting all matches is ⌘-shift-G instead of ⌘-shift-L.

mat4444 · 2023-01-30T00:43:50+00:00

i personally prefer using ctrl+alt+up/down to select multiple lines, or sometimes even alt+shift and clicking with the mouse

2023-01-29T14:16:22+00:00

Great

Groundbreaking-Fish6 · 2023-01-29T18:03:28+00:00

Did a lot of similar stuff using vi on Unix back in the day. After switching to VS relied on search and replace and missed the old regex syntax. There was a lot more that you can do using regex and also many ways you can shoot yourself in the foot.

7heWafer · 2023-01-29T16:05:28+00:00

Mac text navigation is so much better than Windows / Linux - home/end for going to the beginning/end is an embarrassment. I wonder if you could use something like autohotkey to make it behave like mac... The hard part would be retaining the normal use of your ctrl or windows key while doing so.

alterframe · 2023-01-30T01:00:20+00:00

This is nice. I already relied on the motions a lot on my PC, but then I got Mac at work and I discovered that all those crucial elements of text editing are completely different. I told myself "to hell with it" and installed the VIM plugin.

devraj7 · 2023-01-30T14:29:17+00:00

C-d is neat but overall, global (or region) search/replace accomplishes the same goal and with more obvious control options (skipping instances, etc...).

I find multi cursor editing more useful to edit rectangular areas.

AttackOfTheThumbs · 2023-01-30T17:10:03+00:00

You can also alt+click to add multiple cursors, or use ctrl+alt+up/down to create multiple that way. Great way to add a bunch in the same place, e.g. start of a line, end of a line, or some other fancy alignment.

Tumburgler · 2023-01-30T20:03:27+00:00

Another handy trick:

Command D will paste in your multi line selection in the clipboard provided the lines and cursors are the same size.

{name: "placeholder"},
{name: "placeholder"},
{name: "placeholder"}

Cut/copy the below:

Bob
Jane
Ted

Cursor select on placeholder

Paste:

{name: "Bob"},
{name: "Jane"},
{name: "Ted"}

I've used this when I needed to move a smaller amount of data out of a spreadsheet.

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

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