Move back the cursor after a "cw" command

Question

I use quite a lot cw to change a word. I put the cursor on the start of the word, then cw followed by the new word and then <esc>.

So far, so good. My problem is that after that the cursor is at the end of the (new) word. I know I can move back with b, but it's possible to define a modified version of cw so that the movement is automatic at the end of the insert?

Answer 1

You can use a :help :map-expression that defines a fire-once autocmd on InsertLeave (i.e. when you're done with the change) to move back the cursor. I've used `[; instead of the b motion, because that also handles multiple inserted words. Since I wouldn't want to override cw, I've chosen c,w:

function! ToStartOfChange()
    augroup ToStartOfChange
        autocmd ToStartOfChange InsertLeave * execute 'normal! g`[' | autocmd! ToStartOfChange
    augroup END
    return 'cw'
endfunction
nnoremap <expr> c,w ToStartOfChange()