Substituting without jumping

Question

My problem is rather simple : I use a macro to wrap my current visual selection with some text (\verb; and ;, in fact). The current macro I use is :s#\%V.*\%V#\\verb;\0;. It works, but suffers from one problem : subsitutions always jump at the beginning of the line the cursor is on.

I would like to keep my cursor where it is to continue editing right where I did the subsitution or, alternatively, jump at the beginning/end of the substituted text. Is such a thing possible ? I've had a quick look at the substitute help, but there doesn't seem to be such a flag. I am not sure where to look for a global toggle of this behavior, either.

If possible, I would like to be able to keep this behavior for this macro only, however it is not too important and having a global toggle for this behavior would work, too.

Many thanks for your help !

Answer 1

There's a much simpler solution to your specific problem of surrounding the current selection with \view; and ; delimiters. Type:

c\view;;EscP

• c — change the visual selection: this deletes the text and enters insert mode. Crucially, it also stores the deleted text in the unnamed register,
• \view;;Esc — enter your delimiters and exit insert mode,
• P — paste the previously deleted text just before the ending ; delimiter.

Answer 2

Custom operator would be a much better choice than a map, as you can use it with motion, it's very flexible.

Lots of people use surround operator provided by tpope/vim-surround, it's bound to ys in normal mode and S in visual mode. If you want to surround something with asymmetric text, you can customize it like this:

let g:surround_{char2nr('v')} = "\\verb;\r;"

\r is used to separate left and right text. change 'v' to whatever key you like. ys{motion}v will surround target with \vert; and ;. Your cursor will be placed at 1st character of left text.

• :h curly-braces-names