Substitute for vim replace in Sublime - vim

Question

I'm looking for a replacement for vim's "replace with character" command--specifically, I want to be able to select some text and replace each character with some character that I type (difficulty: No "vintage" mode)
Example:
Starting with
I am some text with an arbitrary number: 12358998281
I want an easy way to select 12358998281 and turn it into 99999999999, to make the result
I am some text with an arbitrary number: 99999999999
(in vim, this would be done by moving the cursor to the beginning of 12358998281, selecting with ve, then pressing r9)
I can do this by selecting the text, bringing up the "find" dialog, making sure "in selection" and "by regex" are enabled, searching for ., then typing my character into the resulting multiselect. This is incredibly laborious, however, and it prevents me from doing this process on a multiselect (for example, if 12358998281 exists in multiple parts of the file, I might want to quickly replace all instances of it with 99999999999, rather than performing the process above, getting the substitution, copying it to the clipboard, and then replacing with that).
Does Sublime have a command that acts like vim's "replace" that I can bind to something, or do I have to write a macro to get what I need? Or, am I approaching this from entirely the wrong direction?
A more generalized way of thinking of this is "how can I break a select into a multiselect on all characters", if that helps.

Answer 1

By using this package https://sublime.wbond.net/packages/RegReplace you can create regex patterns and bind them to shortcuts.
Also if there are multiple occurrences of one word, you can put cursor on whatever part of the word and press CTRL+D multiple times. One CTRL+D press will select the word under the cursor, every other press will select next occurrence of the word.
You could also use https://sublime.wbond.net/packages/Expand%20Selection%20to%20Whitespace to expand the selection to whitespace if your word contain some random characters, and then press CTDL+D to select next occurrences of the word.
Edit: With the package regex shortcuts indeed you have to create regexes before binding them. But the CTRL+D does work without it.
I don't see a problem with using "Expand selection to whitespace" and than doing the CTRL+D as I wrote in the answer.
I've checked the usage of visual as you wrote in the question and this solution seems much faster to do. You don't have to place cursor in the beggining of the word as It can be whereever in the word and no find/replace is needed, since you'll multiselect all occurrences by holding CTRL+D for a sec and You'll be free to edit it.
You can also use https://sublime.wbond.net/packages/Expand%20Selection%20to%20Quotes to select text inside quote and combine it with CTRL+D if standard CTRL+D doesn't work with some text, or if select to whitespace selects too much text.

Answer 2

I ended up solving this with a simple (if inelegant) plugin:
import sublime_plugin
import sublime
class MultiSelectWithinSelectedCommand(sublime_plugin.TextCommand):
def run(self, edit):
selection = self.view.sel()
new_regions = []
for selected_region in selection:
if selected_region.empty():
selection.add(self.view.word(selected_region))
for selected_region in selection:
if selected_region.a > selected_region.b:
region_begin = selected_region.b
else:
region_begin = selected_region.a
for pos in range(selected_region.size()):
subregion_begin = region_begin + pos
subregion_end = subregion_begin + 1
new_regions.append(sublime.Region(subregion_begin, subregion_end))
selection.clear()
selection.add_all(new_regions)
Once I've stuck this in my plugins directory, I would bind a command in the keymap file like usual:
{ "keys": ["alt+f"], "command": "multi_select_within_selected" }
(with alt+f chosen arbitrarily), and lo, multi-select on all selected characters with a keypress (after which, I can press my replacement character).