Operator Modifier

Question

I have been using vim mode for atom for quite a while, recently I've been trying to switch to nvim, but I can't seem to find a way to replicate the operator modifiers behaviour, which I've come to rely on quite frequently.

So for example, in the following paragraph:

hello this is me
writing to say hello
to everyone, so hello

Let's say that I wanted to change every occurrence of the word hello to the word hi, I could do that by navigating my cursor over any of the occurrences of hello and typing:

coip

I can't seem to find a convenient way to replace this behaviour, I'm open to any plugin suggestions as well, but a modifier like "o" seems pretty useful (or perhaps I'm missing a better way to do things).

Answer 1

That is indeed a novel and potentially time-saving feature!

The way to do this in plain Vim would be using :substitute for a range; the pattern can be easily set via * when the cursor is on top of it:

*vip:s//hi/g<CR>

A mapping for the :s///g part that puts the cursor right into the replacement part can save many keystrokes here.

In order to support arbitrary text objects (ip covers entire lines, which plays well with the :{range}, but objects like is don't), the vis.vim plugin can help.

Plugin alternatives

I'm not aware of any plugin that implements this for Vim; however, my ChangeGlobally plugin offers something similar: Instead of having a fixed text (the cword with the operator modifier) applied over the specified {motion}, it applies the change or delete of a specified {motion} over a fixed range. I think the implementation could also support the other use case; I might add that to it ...

Update: I've added similar mappings to my plugin. Instead of the o operator modifier, I went with the plugin's existing mapping scheme. (Also, the plugin only handles changes and deletions, and cannot be applied to other actions like gU.)

These are the new mappings:

[N]["x]gc*{motion}      Delete the current whole \<word\> [into register x]
                        and start inserting. After exiting insert mode, that
                        text substitution is applied to all / the first [N]
                        occurrences inside {motion} text.

[N]["x]gx*{motion}      Delete the current whole \<word\> [into register x]
                        and apply the deletion to all / the first [N]
                        occurrences inside {motion} text.

[N]["x]gcg*{motion}     Delete the current word [into register x] and
                        start inserting. After exiting insert mode, that text
                        substitution is applied to all / the first [N]
                        occurrences inside {motion} text.

[N]["x]gxg*{motion}     Delete the current word [into register x] and
                        apply the deletion to all / the first [N] occurrences
                        inside {motion} text.

[N]["x]gc_ALT-8{motion} Delete the current whole \_sWORD\_s [into register x]
                        and ALT-8t inserting. After exiting insert mode, that
                        text substitution is applied to all / the first [N]
                        occurrences inside {motion} text.

[N]["x]gx_ALT-8{motion} Delete the current whole \_sWORD\_s [into register x]
                        and apply the deletion to all / the first [N]
                        occurrences inside {motion} text.

[N]["x]gcg_ALT-8{motion}Delete the current WORD [into register x] and
                        ALT-8t inserting. After exiting insert mode, that text
                        substitution is applied to all / the first [N]
                        occurrences inside {motion} text.

[N]["x]gxg_ALT-8{motion}Delete the current WORD [into register x] and
                        apply the deletion to all / the first [N] occurrences
                        inside {motion} text.

[N]["x]<Leader>gc{source-motion}{target-motion}
                        Delete {source-motion} text [into register x] and
                        start inserting. After exiting insert mode, that text
                        substitution is applied to all / the first [N]
                        occurrences inside {target-motion} text.
{Visual}[N]["x]<Leader>gc{motion}
                        Delete the selected text [into register x] and start
                        inserting. After exiting insert mode, that text
                        substitution is applied to all / the first [N]
                        occurrences inside {motion} text.

[N]["x]<Leader>gx{source-motion}{target-motion}
                        Delete the {source-motion} text [into register x] and
                        apply the deletion to all / the first [N] occurrences
                        inside {target-motion} text.
{Visual}[N]["x]<Leader>gx{motion}
                        Delete the selected text [into register x] and apply
                        the deletion to all / the first [N] occurrences inside
                        {motion} text.