Using macvim, when I copy a text selection, it always includes the character under the cursor.
For example, if the cursor is at the far left and I press shift-down arrow, it selects the entire line plus the first character of the next line (since the cursor is sitting over the next line's first character).
Is there a way to configure macvim to not include the cursor character in text selections?
Take a look at the selection option. By default it's set to inclusive, but you can change it to exclusive to make text selections act the way you want:
:set selection=exclusive
You can also set it to exclusive with the behave command:
:behave mswin
This also sets several other options, however, which may or may not be what you want. See the Vim help for the specifics.
:help :behave
:help 'selection'
I am guessing that shift-down arrow activates visual character mode, and moves the cursor down a line. If you are trying to select entire lines, you would be better off using visual line mode, which is activated from normal mode by pressing V (shift-v). This will select the current line in its entirety. You can then extend your selection to include the lines above and below using the k (or up arrow) and j (or down arrow) keys.
When using Vim, I think it is better to go with the grain rather than to fight against it. Don't expect it to work the same way as other text editors. Accept that the Vim way is different.
Related
I'm using Vintage mode (i.e. vi-style interface) in Sublime Text 3.
I'm trying to copy an arbitrary block of text. In regular Vim, the way I do this is:
Position the cursor at one end of the block.
Set a vi mark at that position, e.g. with mx ("set mark x here").
Position the cursor at the other end of the block.
Yank all text between the current position and mark x into the vi clipboard with y`x.
However, when I do this, it only seems to yank the current line into the clipboard, as if I had typed yy instead of y`x.
`x by itself works as normal (i.e. moves the cursor to mark x). But y`x does not.
As a result I find myself frequently using shift-arrow keys to highlight arbitrary text, which is OK, but is a mental shift I'd like to avoid.
Ideas?
Sublime's Vintage mode simply doesn't support it, unfortunately.
If you'd like a better Vim support, try the Vintageous package. It indeed supports the y`x you are looking for (just tried it).
is it possible in vim to select all lines in the current file, but leave the position where my cursor is unchanged?
Let's say I am currently at line 500 (of 3000) and want to quickly select everything (not yank), as my selection is simply set up to show whitespace characters. Can this be done without leaving my current line?
To achieve exactly what you like, you can press the following:
ggVG<Esc><Ctrl-O><Ctrl-O>
gg moves to the beginning of the file
V starts visual line mode
G moves to the and of the file (now you have selected the whole
file)
<Esc> leaves visual mode
<Ctrl-O> moves your cursor back to the prevois location (first to the beginning of the file, then the second time to your last position before pressing gg)
And if you like to select only the visible lines in you window (to not scroll away). You can use HVL instead of ggVG (H moves to the top of your window and L to the bottom).
You also could show whitespaces without using visual selection with something like this in your .vimrc:
set list listchars=tab:»·,trail:·,nbsp:·
This helps me to detect trailing whitespaces, and mixed (spaces/tabs) indentation.
usually pressing
ggVG
in normal mode will select all the lines, but it will leave your cursor at the last line of the file.
If you wants to highlights the whitespace characters then you can highlight this by using the below command in command mode (this white color chosen is for dark theme)
: hi ExtraWhitespace ctermbg=White guibg=White
Depending on what you are trying to achieve you can use something like :
%cmd
To apply the command to the whole file.
For example, %y will yank the whole file, %=will format the whole file, without moving your cursor. It does not really work if you do something like %d...
It is not a real selection though but rather a way to apply a command on the whole file.
To go further you can use something like
%norm Atest
To add 'test' at the end of each line. (Actually this is a bad example, because this command will move to the last line...)
It is not possible to have the cursor inside a visual selection. This caused by that, vim defines visual selection through two marks. As soon as you move the cursor one of the marks gets updated. Basically this means one of the marks is always lays where the cursor is(at least when using "v" to select). You cannot have the border in the middle of the region that the border defines :)
Is there something like % (that represents the whole buffer in Vim command line) for the current selection, so that I can do something like: :# sort (Imagine # represents the selection).
EDIT:
Sorry, I missed to mention that I am requesting for a way to operate on block selections not on ordinary selections that can be operated using ranges '<,'>.
Yes. Example:
:'<,'>!sort
The range :'<,'> represents the visually selected lines.
:* is shorthand for :'<,'>
If you hit : while in visual mode it will start the command with '<,'>
For more help see:
:h '<
:h v_:
:h range
You are probably looking for the marks '< and '>:
:'<,'>sort
If you just select a few lines and hit : to enter the command line these marks should appear automatically.
As others have already remarked, the visual selection is represented by the '<,'> range (there's also the :* short form). However, as all ranges, this always covers entire lines, even if the selection is only characters or a block.
Most Ex commands (like :sort) only operate on full lines, for :substitute, you can limit the effects to the visual selection by including the special \%V atom in the search pattern, cp. :help /\%V.
The idea to make Ex commands handle blockwise selections is old, but unlikely to be tackled any time soon.
When programming/writing I heavily use word-wise commands, for example "move to the left/right by one word", "delete next/last word" by pressing Ctrl (+left,backspace...).
The problem I have is, when the text I am editing contains symbols which will not be recognized as words, therefore ctrl + right will jump over a sequence of symbols AND a regular word after that.
Ideally I want to be able to set the delimiting characters for word-wise operations to space, tab, newline and opening and closing brackets - maybe also arithmetic operators (similar to how Eclipse handles it).
I am using Linux. Do you know any way how to change my settings system-wide or alternatively for xterm and (g)vim individually to achieve this?
Most likely, system-wide won't work. VIM is easy, you can set the characters that define the identifier using the iskeyword setting. In your case, there is too much in it, and you need to remove the ones you do need, or redefine it by adding the ones you do want. eg: :set isk=9,32,50-51
This will set keyword detection to spaces, tabs and parentheses.
However, in VIM you can jump based on word and WORDs, where the first is defined by the abovementioned iskeyword setting, while the latter will jump over all non-blank characters. Maybe, that's the motion you want. You can read more about this in the help (:help w).
Instead of holding down the control key and pressing the left/right cursor keys, why not use Vim's normal mode word motion commands?
w/W - move to start of next word/WORD
e/E - move to end of next word/WORD
b/B - move to beginning of previous word/WORD
ge/gE - move to end of previous word/WORD
You can read up on the difference between a word and a WORD by running :help word.
This question already has answers here:
How to clear the line number in Vim when copying?
(12 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
So I've figured out how to add line numbers to vim (:set no or :set number) but how can I make it so that when I use my mouse in a terminal emulator to select a block of lines, it does not also select the numbers?
For example, say I have three lines that look like so in vim:
1 First line
2 Second
3 Third
If I want to select the three lines with the mouse what I want is for it to ONLY select the actual text. But what ends up happening is it selects the line numbers as well as all the space to the left and right of the line numbers.
Is there any way to change this behavior? BTW, I'm using the gnome terminal editor in gnome if that makes a difference.
Use the following:
:set mouse=a
to turn on xterm style mousing in all modes. This will allow you to do what you want. Keep in mind if the vim is remote via ssh, you'll need X11 forwarding turned on for the selection to make it to your local clipboard.
AFAIK, that is not possible.
The only thing I can add at the moment is that you'd be better off with
:set invnumber
It will inverse the current condition, so you can map it to a key, and toggle it. That way you don't have to remember two commands.
I agree with the first answer. If you use gvim, you can experiment with using set mouse=n and set mouse=a, which should change the line number selecting behavior.
When I want to select text into a terminal, I remove line numbers.
:set nonu
When I finished
:set nu
You're probably not on a Macintosh, and I can't tell if you mean you want to use system copy rather than vim's yank.
But if you are both those things, you can use option-drag to select text. This creates a 2d box over the text, selecting things that are under it. It should be functionally the same as 'take columns x1 to x2 of rows y1 to y2'.
I'm pretty sure this is not possible in terminal-vim. There is no accepted standard (e.g. a TTY escape) for indicating blocks of characters that aren't highlightable by mouse, as far as I know.
I would use gvim if you want to be able to do this at any cost. Its behavior is as you describe.
My recommendation is to get used to the little box on the right hand corner of the screen which has the current line's number and character position information. Before I used vim I could never imagine living without line numbers, but since then I've moved beyond this. Not having line numbers clutter up the screen allows for distraction free code viewing, and do you really need to know that the line number above your current active line is one less than your current line's number, and the line below is one more?
A copy without mouse:
Enter Visual mode: Position your cursor, press v (For complete line V) move up or down until desired position
Press control + c to copy into clipboard (if +clipboard exists in :ve command output) press ESC and paste it wherever you want with control + v.
Or press y to yank into register and press p to put the text after the cursor