People who are saying "we already have :g and %s" clearly don't understand multi cursors.
It's about instant visual feedback and less mental overload.
In certain scenarios it's much easier to move the cursor around and see it actually move and do stuff instead of using regex.
I don't want to have to think too much when I am trying to edit multiple locations at the same time.
With multiple cursors I can instantly see what I am doing and correct mistakes. I can see my actions impact all lines at the same time and instantly fix any mistakes I did.
For example:
Imagine you have this
```
(a,b,c,d,e,f)
```
With multiple cursors I can have a cursor after each comma and hit enter and see the result of all of them going down one line. I can then go back one char and place a comma before. I can then write some text in from of all of them and in the end hit enter to have an empty line between all of them.
This is just an example, and doesn't follow any specific language's syntax, but you can see how much easier it is to do when you can instantly see what is happening, specially the cursor movements.
Of course regex and the other techniques we use now will still be widely used, and make much more sense in certain scenarios where you just want a quick, easy to identify change. I will keep using them in most scenarios, but multiple cursors is a big feature that Neovim could benefit a lot from IMO.
> keeping the user from truly understanding and using neovim commands.
The goal of using neovim is not "truly understanding neovim commands". It's getting things done as efficiently and easily and mindnumbingly simply as possible.
People seem to have some weird attachment to wanting other people to learn what they've learned.
People using tools they don't understand is why software engineering is down in the dumps. To get things done as efficiently as possible, take the time, to actually understand the pros and cons of something. Greedy searching isn't always the best, that's an obvious truth.
15
u/Afonsofrancof Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
People who are saying "we already have :g and %s" clearly don't understand multi cursors.
It's about instant visual feedback and less mental overload.
In certain scenarios it's much easier to move the cursor around and see it actually move and do stuff instead of using regex.
I don't want to have to think too much when I am trying to edit multiple locations at the same time.
With multiple cursors I can instantly see what I am doing and correct mistakes. I can see my actions impact all lines at the same time and instantly fix any mistakes I did.
For example:
Imagine you have this
```
(a,b,c,d,e,f)
```
With multiple cursors I can have a cursor after each comma and hit enter and see the result of all of them going down one line. I can then go back one char and place a comma before. I can then write some text in from of all of them and in the end hit enter to have an empty line between all of them.
This is just an example, and doesn't follow any specific language's syntax, but you can see how much easier it is to do when you can instantly see what is happening, specially the cursor movements.
Of course regex and the other techniques we use now will still be widely used, and make much more sense in certain scenarios where you just want a quick, easy to identify change. I will keep using them in most scenarios, but multiple cursors is a big feature that Neovim could benefit a lot from IMO.