Exchange selection start and end, Extend selection, Toggle selection mode commands for Visual Studio Code

Features

• Adds a command to exchange selection start and end, similar to Emacs's exchange-point-and-mark command.
• Adds a command to extends the selection with user input text. You can use prefix|suffix to add prefix and suffix at the same time. When used with Exchange Selection start and end, you can add text at either end of the selection without loosing the selection.
• Adds a command to toggle betwen single contiguous selection mode and column selection mode with multiple selections. Depending on the settings "exchangeSelectionStartAndEnd.columnSelectionMode": "..." (see below) in column selection mode it will add a selection to short, partial and full lines. A short line is one that is shorter than the left edge of the selection. A partial line is one which is longer than the left edge of the selection. A full line is one that is at least as long as the right edge of the selection. Optionally short or partial lines can be padded to make them full.

Demo

Usage

• Invoke the Exchange selection start and end command from the Command Palette (windows/linux: CONTROL-SHIFT-P or mac: COMMAND-SHIFT-P) or the default keybinding (windows/linux: ALT-SHIFT-X or mac: OPTION-SHIFT-X).
• Invoke the Extend selection with text ( [prefix][|[suffix]] ) command from the Command Palette or the default keybinding (windows/linux: CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-X or mac: COMMAND-OPTION-SHIFT-X).
• With a multi-line selection, invoke the Toggle selection mode command from the Command Palette or the default keybinding (windows/linux: ALT-SHIFT-S or mac: OPTION-SHIFT-S).

Settings (Configuration)

You can configure how the line length affects the selection in that line and wheather the line is padded by setting the following e.g.

"exchangeSelectionStartAndEnd.columnSelectionMode": "short"

Possible values are:

"short"       - This is the default. Every line - short, partial or full will always have a selection.
"short+pad"   - Short lines will be padded to make them full and will have a selection cursor.
"partial"     - A line will have a selection cursor if it is longer enough to be in the range of selection, albeit partially.
"partial+pad" - A line will have a selection cursor if it is longer enough to be in the range of selection, albeit partially. The line will be padded to make it full.
"full"        - A line will always have a selection cursor only if it is long enough to be fully in selection range.