~ / visual / prefer-operatorslesson 4/6

Operators repeat better than selections

For edits you'll repeat, use operator + text object so . fits every spot.

?how it works

Because a Visual repeat reuses the size of the old selection, it goes wrong as soon as the next target is a different length. vi"U on "ok" and then . on "cancel" uppercases two characters and stops.

An operator with a text object repeats the meaning instead. gUi" says "uppercase inside the quotes", and . does exactly that wherever you are, short string or long. So when you expect to do something more than once, use the operator form:

vi"U becomes gUi"
viwd becomes diw
vi(c becomes ci(
Vip> becomes >ip

Visual mode is still great for one-off, odd-shaped edits where seeing the highlight helps. Rule of thumb: once, Visual is fine; again and again, operator + text object.

⌨keys

`gU{motion}`	uppercase the text a motion or text object covers
`gu{motion}`	lowercase the text a motion or text object covers
`g~{motion}`	toggle case of the text a motion or text object covers
`ci"`	change inside quotes (any c + text object repeats well)

Nin neovim

In Neovim 0.12 a Visual repeat works by size, as described here. Neovim's development version replays the selection keys instead, which makes vi"U + . adapt like an operator would. Operators + text objects behave the same in every version, so they're the habit worth building.

2 drills

gU + text object, then j.: Uppercase the text inside the quotes (or brackets) on every line. Use gU with a text object once, then j. for the other lines. The strings have different lengths, so a Visual repeat would get them wrong.
c + text object, then j.: Replace the text inside each pair of quotes with TBD. Change the first with c and a text object, then repeat it on the other lines with j..

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