Custom Word Motions for VSCode

DEPRECATED: Please refer to selection-utilities for the latest updates for this plugin.

Prefer vim-style word motion, emacs-style, or your-own-style? This is the extension for you.

The extension allows you to specify a set of regular expressions in your settings file and move the cursor or a selection in reference to the boundaries of these expressions.

There are two commands: vscode-custom-word-motions.moveby and vscode-custom-word-motions.narrowto. Both properly handle multiple cursors.

Defining regular expressions

These are defined in your settings file (open with the command Preferences: Open Settings (JSON)), using vscode-custom-word-motions.units. This setting is an array with entries containing a name and a regex value. Each regex is compiled with the g and u flags (global search and unicode support). For example, my settings include the following.

"vscode-custom-word-motions.units": [
    {"name": "WORD", "regex": "[^\\s]+"},
    {"name": "word", "regex": "([/\\p{L}][_\\p{L}0-9]*)|([0-9][0-9.]*)|((?<=[\\s\\r\\n])[^\\p{L}^\\s]+(?=[\\s\\r\\n]))"},
    {"name": "subword", "regex": "(\\p{L}[0-9\\p{Ll}]+)|(\\p{Lu}[\\p{Lu}0-9]+(?!\\p{Ll}))|(\\p{L})|(_+)|([^\\p{L}^\\s^0-9])|([0-9][0-9.]*)"},
    {"name": "subident", "regex": "(\\p{L}[0-9\\p{Ll}]+)|(\\p{Lu}[\\p{Lu}0-9]+(?!\\p{Ll}))|(\\p{L})|([0-9][0-9.]*)"},
    {"name": "number", "regex": "[0-9][0-9.]*"},
    {"name": "space", "regex": "\\s+"},
    {"name": "punctuation", "regex": "[^\\p{L}\\s]+"}
],

You can also define multi-line units; see below.

The moveby command

The moveby command moves the cursor according to one of the regular expressions you defined in your settings. It takes five optional arguments.

• unit: The name of the regex to move by. If not specified the regex \p{L}+ is used.
• select: Set to true if you want the motion to expand the current selection.
• value: The number of boundaries to move by. Negative values move left, positive move right. Defaults to 1.
• boundary: The boundaries to stop at when moving: this can be the start, end or both boundaries of the regex. Defaults to start.
• selectWhole: If specified, the behavior of this command changes. Instead of moving the cursor, it will create a selection at the specified boundaries of the regex currently under the cursor, unless it is already selected. If it is, the next such regex is selected.

For example to move the cursor to the start of the next number, (using the regex definitions provided above), using ctrl+# you could define the following command in your keybindings.json file.

{
    "command": "vscode-custom-word-motions.moveby",
    "args": { "unit": "number" },
    "key": "ctrl+shift+3"
}

The narrowto command

The narrowto command shrinks the current boundaries of the current selection until it is directly at the given boundaries of the regular expression. It takes four optional arguments.

• unit: The name of the regex to move by. If not specified the regex \p{L}+ is used.
• boundary: The boundaries to consider when moving: this can be the start, end or both boundaries of the regex. Defaults to start.
• then: If the selection is already at the boundaries of unit, you can specify a second regex to narrow the selection by here.
• thenBoundary: The boundaries to use for then if different from those specified for boundary.

For example, to narrow the boundaries of the selection to lie at non-white-space characters by pressing cmd+( you could add the following to keybindings.json.

{
    "command": "vscode-custom-word-motions.narrowto",
    "args": { "unit": "WORD" },
    "key": "shift+cmd+9",
}

Multi-line units

This extension now supports defining units for multi-line matches.

To use this feature change the unit entry to use regexs instead of regex.

If a single regular expression is provided, the match will occur to a contiguous series of lines which all match that expression. If multiple expressions are provided, the match will occur to a sequence of lines that match those expressions.

For instance, to select a group of contiguous non-whitespace lines with "cmd+shift+[" you could add the following definition to preferences.

"vscode-custom-word-motions.units": [
    {"name": "paragraph", "regexs": "\\S+"},
]

Then add the following definition to keybindings.json

{
    "command": "vscode-custom-word-motions.moveby",
    "args": { "unit": "paragraph", "selectWhole": true },
    "key": "shift+cmd+9",
}

Or, for instance, you could selection sections of code separated by comment headers

"vscode-custom-word-motions.units": [
    {"name": "section", "regexs": [".+", "^.*------.*$"]}
]"

Where a section header looks like this

// My section
// -----------------------------------------------------------------

You could then select all code in the section using a keybinding like follows.

{
    "command": "vscode-custom-word-motions.moveby",
    "args": { "unit": "section", "boundary": "start", "selectWhole": true },
    "key": "shift+cmd+0",
}