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by yoavm 768 days ago
Neovim is great and is my daily driver for a couple of years now. I was really looking forward to 0.10 because the roadmap said "multicursor", and that's the only thing that sometimes make me open Sublime Text, but it seems like it was more complex to implement than originally estimated and so it was now pushed to 0.12 (https://neovim.io/roadmap/).
4 comments

I used to want multicursor as well. But I heard a recommendation that multicursor is not "the vim way", and instead to use macros or regex search-and-replace or visual-block mode. That's worked for me.

Of course multicursor must be commonly requested for a reason. Just passing along some alternatives.

I think multicursor vs macro is basically a case of whether the feedback is instant, rather than delayed.

Multicursor (in other editors) is a lot better, because you don’t have to think about which exact motion to use as much (since you can see it as you do them).

On the other hand, macros and vim motions are a lot more general, but require you to think about the exact motions a lot more ahead of time.

I think substitution (and command) previews (vs not having these features when substituting) is a good parallel to what multicursor adds over just macros.

Doesn’t multicursor also require thinking about the exact motion, since if you do it wrong, there is no way to undo?
I’m fairly sure VS Code supports undo whilst using multicursor? Why do you say that undo is not possible?

If it’s an inbuilt feature, the editor can definitely support undos.

I meant undo for motions, not edits. I’m pretty sure Neovim does not have that. (There is <c-o>, but only for large motions.)
What's the difference between multicursor and visual block? Genuinely curious, is it that things don't have to be vertically aligned? What's the ux expectation in a pure keyboard based workflow?
Yeah I think that's it. You can place the cursors arbitrarily with Ctrl+mouse3 in editors like VSCode, ST3, IIRC. Multiple cursors in one line is a scenario I don't think visual block would be great for. I say this as an nvim user who uses macros and will occasionally copypaste a block into VSCode just if i'm feeling lazy and want to multicursor something.
Noticed this also. Truly the only reason I still open up vscode. And repo find / replace. Otherwise Switched to nvim full time about 5 months ago, can do everything and more ha
https://github.com/nvim-pack/nvim-spectre

Is a great find and replace plugin for your repo.

so is quick fix list + `:cdo s//gc | :cdo update`

I’ve played enough games where you control multiple characters with the same controls that I don’t comprehend how someone can like multi-cursor.