[Fissionary]

You might like kakoune (https://github.com/mawww/kakoune), which does exactly that: first you select the range (which can even be disjoint, e.g. all words matching a regex), then you operate on it. By default, the selected range is the character under cursor, and multiple cursors work out of the box.

It's also generally lean and follows the Unix philosophy, e.g. by using shell script, pipes, and built-in Unix utilities to do complex operations, rather than inventing a new language (vimscript) for it.

(Not affiliated with the creator, but kakoune has been my daily driver for years now.)

[kwkelly]

Helix[1] is another editor which heavily borrows from kakoune’s “selection then action” paradigm. The editor is very good, but still in heavy development, so it lacks plugins and has the occasional rough edge. [1] https://helix-editor.com