~ / visual / adjust-selectionlesson 2/6

Adjust a selection: o and gv

Grow a selection from its other end, and bring back the last one.

?how it works

A selection has two ends: the anchor where you started, and the end under the cursor. Motions only move the cursor end. Press o to jump to the other end, and now your motions grow or shrink the selection from that side. Press o again to hop back.

That rescues you when you started in the middle of what you wanted: select forward, o, then extend backwards. In block mode, O jumps to the other corner on the same line, so you can widen a block to the left.

gv brings back the previous selection, same shape and same mode. Use it to run a second operator on the same text (uppercase it, then indent it), or after an accidental <Esc>.

Text objects work while selecting too: viw, vi" and vip select a word, a quoted string or a paragraph, and typing aw again grows the selection a word at a time.

⌨keys

`o`	Visual: jump to the other end of the selection
`O`	Visual block: jump to the other corner on the same line
`gv`	reselect the previous Visual area
`viw`	select a word (any text object works after v)

2 drills

Grow it backwards with o: Uppercase the three-word phrase that ends with the word under the cursor. Start selecting right here, then use o to stretch the selection backwards.
Second operator with gv: Uppercase the three lines inside the block, then use gv to select them again and indent them one level.

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