Column Editing Mode For Visual Studio & (G)Vim.

I have been a heavy Visual Studio user for 10 + years. I was re-factoring some code today when I found that it has Column Editing capabilities. This was caused by me getting a keyboard short cut wrong and not noticing as I typed. From a quick Google this appears to be something that has been available for sometime. Usually when I need to do Column Editing in bulk I switch to (G)Vim and have often wished it was available in Visual Studio.

To edit columns in Visual Studio you simple have to hold SHIFT+ALT after selecting the start point with your mouse and then drag to select the columns you wish to edit. Start typing and your columns will all receive the edit.

As a side note Column Editing in (G)Vim is very easy. Simply hit CTRL+V to put you into column editing mode and then select the columns to edit. Once selected hit SHIFT+i to put you into insert mode and start making your edits. Once done hit ESC to exit column editing mode.

IDE's vs Vim

This is an interesting article on why a developer has stopped using IDE's in favour of VIM.

I have to say I agree with his point of view.

Vim-fugitive

Git-hub link for a Gvim/Vim script to enable good git support.

It's All Text.... Bring Vim To FireFox!

Ok It Works..... Cool!!

This entry was brought to you by It's All Text a great little Firefox addon that I read about on Ivans blog.

What a great tip!

Kate VI Input Mode Is In For KDE 4.2.

I have just been reading a great post on Erlends blog that he has finally submitted his code to enable VI input mode as a Kpart for KDE 4.2. This is a really welcome patch.

You can read a full set of supported commands in the above post.

Vim Macro Recorder.

I love simple tools for simple jobs and the VIM Keyboard Macro recorder is one such tool. In fact it was the reason I found VIM in the first place.

Anyway, how to use the recorder. To record a macro hit the q button and then enter a name for your macro. q is a great name as it is quick to type (qq) but you can name it bob (qbob) or whatever you want. When you finish completing your keyboard maneuvers then hit q again to end the recording.

To play the macro back you type @name. So if you are lazy like me that would be @q. If you want to repeat the macro a number of times then 10@q will play the q macro 10 times.

nobackup VIM Setting

Something I have meant to sort for a while is VIM leaving backup (swap) files littering my windows laptop.

set nobackup

Add this to the bottom of your ~/.vimrc and this will mean those backup files will be removed when you close the instance of VIM using the file.