Virtual space

[abathologist]

I just realized how much easier writing ascii tables would be with virtual space, and then I got an inkling of its power; therefore I heartily +1 this request!

[subsurface]

Yet another vote for virtual space. This combined with visual block mode ctrl+v would be “sublime”.

[jdlx]

Just received a reply to my question over here linking to this thread… count me in with +1. Sad to hear that excellent feature doesn’t exist and won’t make it into ST any time soon.

What about plugins… could this feature be implemented that way?

cheers,
Jan

[quarnster]

Yeah, you could make a plugin that inserts the appropriate number of spaces.

[idemura]

Yet another vote for virtual space:)

[Bill_Forster]

Just adding another vote for virtual space. I have been looking forward to sitting down and evaluating Sublime Text 2. It sounded like a dream, one licence for Windows, Mac and Linux (I use all three). Fully configurable with Python. A pure programmer’s editor. My initial impression was great, but then … ahhhhhh … as I down arrow I don’t stay in the same column unless I am lucky enough that all lines below my start point are at least as long as my initial column position. Worse (much worse) was to follow. There is no way to change this horrible behaviour ! I am really struggling to believe this can be true. I believe I escaped from this primitive mode of operation for the first time with the Brief MS-DOS editor way back in the eighties. This is so fundamental. It’s the difference between interacting with your code as a fluid representation of abstract ideas (good) versus interacting with your code as a list of jagged lines of text (bad - very very bad).

Edit later: Having another go today and I notice that if I go down down down down etc. the column change that occurs if I hit a short line is only temporary - if I reach a sufficiently long line the column position will revert to my original starting place. This is good and reduces my grief for the absent virtual space feature significantly.

[vitaLee]

this is a reworked version of a command i used for some time.
it does address the problem @gpfsmurf had.
it’s improved version of Sublime’s “Add next/previous” line in that respect that it expands the selection by placing the new region in the same column even if the line is shorter.
It also solves one annoyance i had with sel placement i tried to explain here http://sublimetext.userecho.com/topic/123237-correct-add-nextprevious-line-behaviour/
i hope someone might find it useful.

[quote=“gpfsmurf”]Current:

blah blahb|lah
|
asdhasdklj|dhaslkhdsalk
daskhask|
1237912623|9871263129836913

Proposed:

blah blahb|lah
          |
asdhasdklj|dhaslkhdsalk
daskhask  |
1237912263|9871263129836913

I can see uses for both behaviors, so having this as an option would be nice to have.[/quote]

[raytracer]

Another vote for virtual space. My daily IDE has virtual space. I use sublime text for everything else. Virtual space is not a make or break feature for me but it would be very awesome to have in Sublime Text. It sounds like a small feature, but once you’ve grown accustomed to it, it’s hard to go back.

[jcelle]

April 2017, apparently this feature is still not there.
One of the few that prevent me from completely adopting ST3…

[kingkeith]

How: Cursor beyond end-of-line?

you could presumably build a plugin to add whitespace after the end of the line up to the caret's column position when you click on a line or move up and down, and remove it again when the caret moves back off the line if desired, though I haven't read any of the preceding posts to see why you would want to do such a thing or if someone else make a plugin already

[cobe]

Essential text editor feature, hope it gets implemented

I’m checking out sublime text atm but having to go back because of this (for now!)

[mg979]

I’m also interested in this. I found this plugin that could be helpful

https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Equalize

Is there a way to access the clipboard and modify it on the fly, to strip trailing whitespaces copied from a such a selection?

[OdatNurd]

Yes, there are get_clipboard and set_clipboard methods in the sublime module.

As an example, I wrote this plugin for someone that wanted something similar.

In the example, the idea is copying results from a Find in Files result, automatically throwing away the line numbers at the start. However you could easily swap the regex for one that strips trailing white space.

[mg979]

Cool, thanks!

[BorisP]

I also vote for the virtual space

[byronformwalt]

I advocate for this feature. It would be most useful to me when creating markdown tables and for documenting source code.

[mg979]

Just made a plugin for this, some feedback would be appreciated, thanks.

Virtual Space Plugin

Virtual Space plugin This plugin enables you to work with full-column selections, even after normal EOL boundaries. Essentially, it works by appending whitespace to each line, up to the view wrap settings, longest line in file, or a custom value. It can be enabled either via keyboard or mouse (just start dragging with middle mouse button). [image] Installation Clone in your Packages folder. Usage Typical usage would be: enable with keyboard or …

[masha_dev]

Your plugin looks great!

Is it possible to modify it to edit document in Virtual Space mode (to set cursor anywhere beyound the end of line)? …

[mg979]

Is it possible to modify it to edit document in Virtual Space mode

I think you can do it already. By default, it exits virtual space on copy/cut, but you can set exit_on_copy to false to stay in virtual space mode until you deactivate it again. About whole file, you can increase safe_size to the value you prefer, I don’t know if it can cause slowdowns for huge files(I didn’t try it), if the size is bigger than that value virtual space is limited to a number of lines around the starting cursor(100 up and down by default).

Also, there is still a limit to how far you can go, it depends on view wrap settings, but you can set use_longest_row to true, to expand all lines to the longest row in the file.

[masha_dev]

Thank you! ) … Try to make it