CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vim
Rose Perrone
Rose Perrone

Reputation: 63616

Visual block insert/append doesn't work

I select a block of text using Ctrl-V, but when I then type Shift-A or Shift-I, my vim editor goes into insert mode on only the location where I began the visual block mode.

For example,

Here
is 
text

I want

#Her 
#is 
#text

but I get:

#Here
is 
text

Upvotes: 34

Views: 22941

Answers (5)

Patrick
Patrick

Reputation: 35

I had the exact same issue and I'm not sure if it's because I'm on Mac OSX. I thought I needed to hit Esc twice. However, once you hit ESC it takes a second for it to place all the characters.

In the example below I ran the following commands:

Ctrl + v
6
j
Shift + i
#
space
Esc

Here's a screen recording of how it looks:

vim visual insert

Upvotes: 0

dpritch
dpritch

Reputation: 1279

For me the problem was that I was using linewise visual mode (i.e. enter visual mode by pressing V), rather than blockwise visual mode (i.e. enter visual mode by using Ctrl-v). Also note that you have to exit visual mode by using <Esc> (or equivalently by using Ctrl-[ on English keyboards) rather than by using Ctrl-c.

Upvotes: 9

ZIADI Mohamed ali
ZIADI Mohamed ali

Reputation: 17

rpm -qa | grep vim

vim-enhanced-7.4.160-1.el7.x86_64
vim-common-7.4.160-1.el7.x86_64
vim-filesystem-7.4.160-1.el7.x86_64

1/just remove vi and use vim instead
or
2/alias vim='vi' in your bashrc
or
3/ln -s $(which vim) $(which vim|sed 's/vim/vi/g')

Upvotes: 0

Kent
Kent

Reputation: 195269

Ctrl-V-> select the block -> press I -> type #

then press ESC

more detail:

:h v_b_I

you can see:

Visual-block Insert                     *v_b_I* 

With a blockwise selection, I{string}<ESC> will insert {string} at the start 
of block on every line of the block, provided that the line extends into the block.

Upvotes: 26

Tom
Tom

Reputation: 16208

Make sure you exit visual block with ESC, not Ctrl C.

Also, Vim does not live update in visual block mode, you have to leave visual block mode to show the changes on other lines.

You will only see:

#Here
is 
text

After you enter visual block and insert a #, but once you leave visual block mode pressing ESC it should look like:

#Here
#is 
#text

Upvotes: 36

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