I use a number of text editors. The three I have pinned to my taskbar are Visual Studio, Sublime Text 2, and Notepad 2.
I have three because I like features from one and wish those features were in another.
Sublime Text (and a few other editors) has a great feature called Simultaneous Editing. It's the very definition of an advanced - but core - editor feature.
Enter the MultiEdit extension for Visual Studio. Holding down ALT while mouse-clicking in the editor will add multiple selection points, so when you type, text will be added to all the selected positions. So today, MultiEdit supports multiple carets, but not multiple selections.
Here's an animated gif of MultiEdit in action.
This wonderful MultiEdit extension was released by the Visual Studio "Core Editor" Program Manager Ala Shiban (@AlaShiban). I'd like you guys to encourage our new friend with good reviews and nice comments if you like it. If you find a good bug, offer a clear bug report.
Perhaps if this thing gets a few hundred thousand downloads, we can get some new features, updates and more importantly show Ala's boss and make it a real live built-in feature. ;)
Version 1.0 supports:
- Typing
- Backspacing / Deleting
- Moving the caret around using the keyboard
- Undo-ing
What isn't supported:
- Multiple selections
- Virtual Spaces
Go get MultiEdit now for Visual Studio 2012 and then share it with all your friends.
Even better, perhaps we'll see even more "power toys" from the Core Editor team.
What would you like to see?
© 2013 Scott Hanselman. All rights reserved.
