Multiple select in Visual Studio?

Question

Is there a way to select multiple non-adjoining (totally separate) texts in VS? I can do it in MS Word by selecting the texts separately by holding the Ctrl button, like this:

My version is 11.

Edit: I'm not talking about Alt+Select block selection. Also I would love to see if there exist a technique in Notepad++.

Answer 1

Multi cursor edit is natively supported in Visual Studio starting from version 2017 Update 8. Here is the documentation:

Multi-caret selection

and here is a screenshot of available command:

Answer 2

Now the plugin is Multi Line tricks. The end and start buttons broke the selection.

Answer 3

There is a new extension for Visual Studio 2017 called SelectNextOccurrence which is free and open-source.

This extension makes it possible to select next occurrences of a selected text for editing.

Aims to replicate the Ctrl+D command of Sublime Text for faster coding.

Features:

• Select next occurrence of current selection.
• Skip occurrence
• Undo occurrence
• Add caret above/below
• Use multiple carets to edit (Alt-click to add caret)

Visual Studio commands:

• SelectNextOccurrence.SelectNextOccurrence is bound to Ctrl+D by default.
• SelectNextOccurrence.SkipOccurrence is not bound by default. (Recommended Ctrl+K, Ctrl+D)
• SelectNextOccurrence.UndoOccurrence is not bound by default. (Recommended Ctrl+U)
• SelectNextOccurrence.AddCaretAbove is not bound by default. (Recommended Ctrl+Alt+Up)
• SelectNextOccurrence.AddCaretBelow is not bound by default. (Recommended Ctrl+Alt+Down)

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=thomaswelen.SelectNextOccurrence

https://github.com/2mas/SelectNextOccurrence

Answer 4

I couldn't find anything built in, which is sad. There is this functionality in CodeRush though.

With Notepad++, this feature comes in built in. Just turn on multi-editing from

Setting > Preferences > Editing > Multi-Editing Settings

But its not as intuitive as MS Word which lets you select two words by double clicking on them (after Ctrl of course).

Answer 5

From Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.8, Ctrl + Alt + Click is now supposed to be a built-in way to manage multiple carets.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2018/08/30/improving-your-productivity-in-the-visual-studio-editor/

Answer 6

In the Visual Studio Shift+Alt+. / Shift+Alt+,

• Shift+Alt+. - match caret;
• Shift+Alt+, - remove previous caret;

Same function as on VSCode Ctrl+D.

Much more setting Tool - Options - Environment - keyboard. Next in the Show commands containing enter Edit..

Also, can use keyboard schema Visual Studio Code. Available for Visual Studio 2017

For conclusion, nice link Visual Studio All keyboard shortcuts