Replace selection in one movement

Question

I'm getting started using spacemacs with vim bindings for editing and one thing I would like to do sometimes is replace some text with some other text. For example I might have

k x = (1 + 1) * x

and I want to select replace (1 + 1) with 2. Normally in vim I would just type f(v%s2<Esc>.

However in spacemacs s doesn't work on selections like it does in vim, this instead puts 2 around the selection

k x = 2(1 + 1)2 * x

Which is not what I wanted. (Strangely s seems to work perfectly in normal mode)

Now obviously in this case I can just do di to delete and enter insert mode separately but in general di has some important drawbacks:

• It cannot be repeated across several lines using visual selection mode (a very common use case)
• It cannot be repeated with . since it is two actions.

Is there another option that I could use to achieve the functionality of my old s? Or do I have to modify my configs somehow?

Answer 1

Let me just preface this by saying that I am not very familiar with spacemacs except for the fact that it is similar to vim so I might be missing emacsy solutions. That being said, a friend of mine who uses spacemacs tested these suggestions for me and has confirmed that they work.

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You can just use the exact sequence you have been using but replace the s with a c. (As in f(v%c2<Esc>). You can also achieve the same effect without visual mode with the c command with the motion ab which is the motion over the whole of a parenthetical. Combined with the f command to reach the start of the parenthetical the whole set of commands would be f(cab2<Esc>.