Visual block insert new line

Question

I work a lot with visual block mode, which I find really useful for quick changes across a lot of lines.

But something I'm struggling to do is inserting a newline like so:

Selection is noted as []:

Some [t]ext
Some [t]ext
Some [t]ext
Some [t]ext
Some [t]ext

I press I and I can add some text to be inserted before the t:

Some other text
Some [t]ext
Some [t]ext
Some [t]ext
Some [t]ext

When I press <Esc> I get the following:

Some other text
Some other text
Some other text
Some other text
Some other text

But now if I press <CR> instead of the text I want to add, the newline is inserted as desired but not for the other lines. The result is the following:

Some 
text
Some text
Some text
Some text
Some text

Do you know why this isn't working?

Note: since it works for c and r I'm not sure why is this not working...

Answer 1

Visual block I doesn't work like that. The best you can probably do is something like the following.

Highlight a column in visual block mode (with [b] denoting a highlighted character as in your question):

aaa[b]bb
aaa[b]bb
aaa[b]bb
aaa[b]bb
cccccc

Perform a substitution on the visual area with \%V:

:'<,'>s/\%V/\r/

Vim will insert the '<,'> for you when you press :, so you don't need to type that bit.

And the result:

aaa
bbb
aaa
bbb
aaa
bbb
aaa
bbb
cccccc

If you need to split lines at a visual block often, chances are it'll be readily available in your history, and you may not need to do any more than highlight, then :<up><return>.