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When a macro is the wrong tool

When a macro is the wrong tool

Look back at the last few sections: every one of them was “do the same thing to each line”. In Helix, that’s usually not a job for a macro at all — it’s a job for multiple cursors, which you met in lesson 10.

With a cursor on every line, the edit happens on all of them at the same time, live, while you type. There’s nothing to record, no register to remember, and if the first line looks right, they all do. A macro only earns its place when the edit is too long or too fiddly to keep in your head, or when you need to replay it later on text that doesn’t exist yet.

Try it in the editor. Work through the checklist below. Put a cursor on all three lines with CC, prefix them all with XXX in one I edit, and collapse back to one cursor with ,. That’s the whole macro from the previous sections, without the macro.

  1. Add a cursor on each of the lines below Press C twice — the statusline reads 3 sels.
  2. Prefix every line at once Press I, type XXX, and press Esc.
  3. Collapse back to a single cursor Press ,.
Add a cursor on each of the lines below Press C twice — the statusline reads 3 sels.

Next: Prefix every line at once

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